Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 2 — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

THE TORCH. the young man confided his plans when he sailed from the Manhattan shore. Wenn did seek for his captain, as thor- oughly as be knew how, and the High-born, Wolff’s daughter, urged him to new efforts. But neither of them could solve the mys- tery of Fortune’s disappearance. So with the passing weeks the prisoner had maintained an appearance of interest in the plans of Zorn, the recluse, while se- cretly his thoughts were busy with two ab- sorbing problems: How to escape, and how to take the girl, Mary, with him. Of Mary he had seen much. Zorn had given to her the task of instructing Fortune in the ideals of the queer brotherhood. Even the eloquence of this strange young woman, known to the Comrades as the Torch-child, left his mind unmoved. But her daily companionship had played havoc with his affections. From Zorn, Fortune had learned what he early suspected—that this girl was no child of the Folk. Like Zorn himself, who had quit Manhattan when his awakened con- science would no longer let him enjoy the empty honor of being Director of Knowl- edge, Mary was a refugee. Her father had been of the Tower People. He had died and left a baby daughter with none to care for her. Zorn had taken this ward, and it was Zorn who taught her all the hidden wisdom found in ancient books as well as how to ride and fence and shoot a bow. The very thought of Mary was a delicious torture to Fortune. Above anything on earth he coveted her. A hundred times as he sat beside her or walked with her he was ready to foreswear all ambition, to forget allegiance pledged to Wolff and the Tower Rule, to throw away every claim to normal life if by that he could win her. And a hundred times more he had been stopped by the knowledge that he could not take up her cause with sincerity—the wrongs of the Folk left him unmoved. No higher tribute to Mary can be re- corded than the spirit of honesty she cre- ated in the conscienceless young captain of the Tower People, an honesty strong enough to hold him back from the very thing he most desired. 243 If he would escape, but a few days re- mained in which to make a plan. A few days, and he must give his final answer to these Comrades of the Torch. If it were not for Mary he easily could have lied, and played the traitor at the earli- est convenience. She made that rdéle im- possible. Of the permanent members of this revo- lutionary group less than a score lived on the Isle of the Great Woman, keeping by day under cover of its grove, so that few of the Tower People of Manhattan guessed the place was inhabited. Among them Fortune had a wide freedom, yet he knew that he was constantly watched. The gigantic Shard was often near him, and, when Shard was not, the crooked- backed Tringe appeared in the role of shadow. The little humpback spent his days fly- ing big kites, and Fortune was at first in- clined to think him a half-wit, but he no- ticed that during their infrequent conversa- tions it was Tringe who won the honors easily. Months later, when he understood the kites, he wondered at his own blind- ness. : Shard proved merely a stupid and natur- ally good-natured fellow. But what he lacked in knowledge and cunning wit his companion and closest friend, the hump- back, made up with overflowing measure so that one or the other of these watchmen seemed always to anticipate Fortune’s in- tentions and be present to discourage him. There remained to him one last hope—‘ the possibility of finding some man he could bribe to carry a message to Alda. He looked for such a one among the Comrades who gathered at the meetings which oc- curred twice a week. Sometimes these agents from the Under ‘City who came to report progress of the revolutionary propaganda brought with them strange converts to the cause. These were usually miserable beings, often mutilated by some official cruelty of their masters, or half starved and fevered with the privations of their hiding-places or the prisons in the Drains where they had been kept. (e(0) _OOK (C©@)