The Argosy, Vol. 82, No. 3 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

444 Marshall. “There’s more of it, bullies, an’ when we've got it we’ll—” He was interrupted by a chorus of the men. “Let’s have a look at it, cap’n! Slim Jack can open her up—he’s picked more’n one lock in his time!” “All right, then—make sure,” nodded Marshall. ‘An’ keep that girl away from the Dude, blast you!”’ Mary Peabody was halted on the other side of the group, and Blake caught her eyes fastened on him. But there was no fear in her face—rather sorrow and pity, and a hopeless bewilderment that sickened him anew. Slim Jack, a grinning waterfront rat, knelt before the chest and fumbled with its locks. There was a click; after a moment, an- other; then a third click, and with a maud- lin Jaugh the seaman raised the creaking lid. Marshall shoved back the men and leaned forward, then— “Sand!” he roared, straightening up with such fury in his face that the men shrank back from him. “Sand! Gawd—” For a moment his rage choked him, and in the silence Blake’s laugh rang out. So, then, Wicliff had not been such a fool after all. “Pile up that stuff!” foamed Marshall, raving curses like a madman. “Pile up that stuff, you blasted rats—lively! Tie up that girl—do the job right, you Slim Jack, or by Heaven you die here an’ now!” Under his threatening rifle and more threatening manner, the men leaped to his word in wild panic. Unresisting, Mary Pea- body allowed two of them to tie her feet together. As with Marshall, the exultation of the men had given way to bitter fury on discovering that their gold was but sand. When he saw the girl seized Jack Blake also went mad, and writhed in his bonds unavailingly, until Marshall’s vicious curses turned to a terribly ominous laughter that was drowned in a sudden crackle of wood. Not far from the boats, and close to the group, was that same tangled mass of drift- wood which had hidden Foster’s boat from Blake. It was now low tide, and the mass had washed up to high water mark. One of the men had touched a match to the tangle, and over it the rest were now heaping the bungalow loot—chairs, veranda rails, smashed table, doors. As it began to flame up, Steelfist turned and his boot thudded into Blake’s ribs. THE ARGOSY. “Now, my bucko, we'll have some talk out o’ you! Want to taste that fire? Then loosen up! Where’s the gold, huh?” Realizing at last the meaning of that fire, Blake went cold with horror and fear of the savage who leered down at him. Save for the brisk crackle of the flames the night seemed charged with an awful stillness. The moon was fleeced with clouds, and a faint rising breeze soughed insistently through the bush and the crested lantanas. From windward the deep ocean swell surged in, breaking against the lower cliffs with slow, thunderous resonance. The John Foster had become quiet. “Speak up!” snarled the skipper, giving Blake another kick. ‘‘Where’s that loot stowed?” “T don’t know,” and Blake writhed under the pain. “But I’d give a good deal for five minutes bare-handed with you!” Marshall glared, his eyes bloodshot and red in the fire-glow, half-hidden brutality flashing out in every line of his powerful, wolfish features. Then he turned to his men, who were crowding in with brutish eagerness for the spectacle. “Two o’ you men lay out along the beach, with rifles—one each way. Sharp, you swine! Keep watch, or-I’ll flake ye! Where’s that cursed Paddy Ryan? Any 0’ you lads do for him?” , ‘We met him up in the bush, sir,” spoke up one of Bower’s men. “Said he was—” “Ves,” raved Steelfist, ““an’ then he let out a yell for Dude, huh? No, you didn’t know better’n to let him pass, drat ye! An’ the bo’sun—anybody seen him?” Nobody had, it appeared. Blake looked at the girl, met her eyes, and groaned to himself. He was helpless, unable to move, and the look in her eyes, the dread pallor of her features, the brave hopelessness with which she held herself erect and unflinching—all these told him that she knew nothing of the gold, yet knew that Steelfist would never believe that she knew nothing of it. “She’s a brave heart—a brave heart!” thought Blake, watching her, fascinated. “Marshall knows it, too, and he’ll think her lying—oh, the devil, the cursed devil! If I could get rid of these lashings for half a minute!” But he could not. With his sentries posted, and secure, as he thought, from all possible attack, Steel- fist turned his attention to his prisoners. Gomichbook (C@