The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

SOUTHWEST OF THE LAW. office and general reception-hall. The room was empty, save for some piles of old magazines which, from their dates, had probably been brought along by the former manager to while away his time in the first voyage up the river. The room was: well adapted to the pur- pose of a prison. Haggins had stoutly barred all the windows of the bungalow, knowing that revolts were always to be taken into consideration. A strong man might have broken the lock on the door leading to the larger room; though it would have done Miss Reade no good to do so, since she heard Pinhon’s sharp as- surance to the guard he put there, that her escape would mean death. Evidently Pinhon had too much else on his hands for any forcing of his attentions upon her at the moment. It sounded to the girl as if he were turning the crowd loose to work its will upon the plant in general, since the whole place resounded with hoarse shouts of men drunk with ex- citement, if not with mescal. She had plenty of time to reflect, to wonder what madness possessed the doc- tor, who must know that he would be ter- ribly punished in the end; to wonder upon her own fate—though that she had determined would be death. She, too, reached something of that calm which comes of clear realization of things eternal. Even her father’s death no longer alarmed her—together in an- other world, she thought, they would laugh at the slight terror as to the man- ner of their end.., Yet the manner of her end was shroud- ed in such ghastly uncertainty as to make it very different from the prospect Phil- lips was to face a few hours later. She could but plan to compel the love-crazed native physician to shoot her—a thousand plans, none of which seemed quite certain of accomplishing its purpose. Through it all the most disquieting thought concerned that which she would hardly have supposed would so disturb her. That Phillips should have run away, left her thus to Pinhon’s mercy, buried 237 himself-in the jungle in a panic of cow- ardly fear—somehow it hurt. And, perhaps she was right in feeling worst about this. Suffering, torture, the mode of death for ourselves or even for those we love better than ourselves—are things temporal; character is eternal. The most horrible death were less pitiable than a cravenly, cowardly flight from death. Phillips a base coward—running pell- mell from a few unruly natives—hiding himself, crouching, fearful, regardless of what might happen to a woman he had shown signs of loving—the picture was a sickening caricature of that which the man had made on her mind. Somehow she had thought him big and_ fine at heart. Somehow she had feared that, after she had married Haggins, she would discover she had chosen the baser man of the two. Sometimes she had feared that she wished she might find it out before she married Haggins. | Yes, Phillips’s cowardice hurt. Even now she was not sure that it would have hurt so much had Haggins done as badly. At length came the end to reflection. She heard the brisk step of the doctor. He crossed the outer room rapidly. He spoke a curt word to the guard. There was a jingling of keys, then the creaking of the lock, the turning of the door’s knob. The light in the storage- room had been turned off—it was turned on again from a switch outside. Shrinking into the farthest corner of the room she watched the dark face as he strode into its center. It seemed strange- ly different from the face she had known during nearly four months through which he had played the well-bred physician bent upon the performance of his high duty of healing. Now it was cruel, hard, bloodshot-eyed, leering lipped. An evil grin spread itself over the whole countenance as he sur- veyed her shrinking figure. “You haven’t got me perfectly covered this time, eh?” He spoke hardly above a whisper. Then, as she did not answer, COMMICOOOKS (C@