Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

ISLE OF shell to Larkin, whe was more vicious than valiant, whose instincts were to roll over on his back rather than stand up to a Stranger. Life with Bligh had given him a mock braggadocio that carried him through these days without challenge, but the years of knocking around as wharf-rat, mess-boy, cabin-flunky, kicked from ship to ship, that made up the early years of Larkin’s history, had left their mark. Under his mask he always wanted to cringe. And he was not so really evil as led to worship evil things as the fruits of suc- cess. He took to such fruits as a boy learns to smoke and, after a time, enjoys the habit. Stranded in the South Seas early in the game, Larkin’s employers were coarse traders whose only joys were drink and women. Bligh was a refined edition of such men, and, when he gave Larkin a chance, the latter jumped at it. _ Then he had met Pualele, and fallen in love with her—in a strange fashion for Larkin. Something had stirred within him, something long covered, unsuspected, a longing primitive yet not bestial, the swift desire for mate and home and children. It comes to every man, and it struck Larkin, the panderer, fairly between the eyes. He spoke to her, and saw in her eyes the inclination to laugh at his squat figure, tempered with the respect due a white man, inherent in her native-tinctured blood: He spoke of Bligh, and her eyes had widened. She had heard of the cap- tain’s exploits, and, womanlike, she wished to try her fascinations on the man said to be so terrible and yet so handsome. While they were talking, Bligh had come up, masterful, resplendent in his shore clothes, auraed by the record of his many conquests. He had sent Larkin away upon an errand, and the supercargo had seen the girl no more until the night Bligh ordered him ashore to bring her aboard the Wave, a foolish, loving Pualele, palpitant with tropic passion. She had been merry at first, and Larkin had been her clown. She had used him and abused him, and then the same fate fell upon her as Bligh tired of her high tem- per and her demands that she be taken - himself. DRUMS. 103 ashore.and married. In the evenings Larkin was denied the main cabin, buthehad heard the tirade that preceded the smashing of the bottle across the table, and, when he had first seen the bruises about Pualele’s wrists, he had wanted to murder Bligh. The next morning she had told him she preferred the sharks to him, though he would gladly have taken her, have made an honest woman of her, built her a bun- galow on Mount Tantalus, back of Hono- lulu, and given her everything she asked for. She kad stolen into his cabin and taken the pistol, a cheap one he had taken away from a drunken Kanaka, and which always lay in the rack with his razors and his comb and brushes—and she had shot him with it while Bligh laughed. His wound throbbed now, and his heart ached also at the thought of her marooned upon Hope Island, sadly misnamed for her predica- ment. He told himself that if he had guessed Bligh’s purpose he would have fought for her—and knew that he lied to His mood was that of self-pity, of semimaudlin sentiment that lacked vi- rility. Larkin had got up after the feverish night that Bligh had predicted, and, though the threat hung over him sufficiently to temper the size and number of his nips at the gin bottle, he had eaten nothing, and the liquor gripped and weakened him. It was simple for his mood to become lacri- mose. Tears of sorrow for Pualele flooded his ducts, and he winked them away as he raised her photograph and, with a shake of his head, kissed it. 7 The next second it was snatched away, and Bligh, his eyes cold as a shark’s, faced him. “ Drunk again, are you? Drunk and giving yourself away! So, that’s the little game you were up to behind my back. And you gave her the gun and hoped that she’d do away with me, lacking the guts yourself?” “ No—no—Bligh! I didn’t give her the gun—I swear I didn’t! Why—she had no use for me—you know that—I—” “Shut up! Where did you get that picture? Imu!” Conn NOOLK