Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 196: what you’re looking at

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

7162 heart ceased to beat as he saw that the old box table had fallen at one end, and that neither newspapers nor cigarette butts lit- tered the floor. Some one had been there. He rushed. forward to find the crack through. which he had seen the treasure , buried. . At first he could net locate it, and his forehead broke into a sweat. His old fin- gers scratched along the floor like the claws of a crazy crab. He began to puff and _ wheeze. When his fingers found it at last he cried aloud. to He went to work at once. Placing the light close to the crack he began to whittle at the place until he had made an aperture large enough to allow the light to be wedged ‘into it head down. Then, knowing that the light would point straight down to the buried box, he hurried out of the room. ‘On the front porch he paused, startled by the weird effect of the moonlight shin- ing through the trees. This wasn’t a grove! It was the old,.forest-like cathe- dral of Milan.- Again he saw the gray mar- ble statue with its ancient inscription, and the queer translation of the guide: There is no theft. Men always pay. Hagan laughed aloud. ‘“ Yeh—men al- ways pay.” he hurried around the house gaughing. Yet there was a fear deep with- in his heart. Would he find the ground disturbed? He hadn’t looked through the - crack. Had some one been there before him? | At the point where he saw the light he tore a rotten board from the bottom of the house, and crawled under. When he ar- rived at the spot where the light pointed, he sprawled there, his hands clutching the * dry earth lovingly, and his eyes were vu a -ARGOSY-ALLSTORY . WEEKLY. gleaming. He was laughing ‘and jabbering . to himself. The ground was unmarked. | He started to dig with his long-bladed knife, and the dirt flew back into his face. After a few minutes the blade struck some- thing solid. There was a dull, metallic sound. How often during the ten years * had he heard that telltale sound in nis ‘ dreams. The box was still wrapped in tape, and there were still traces of white paraffin hardened into the crevices between the folds. Hagan’s thin old fingers trembled so that he had difficulty in cutting the hard bandage, and even when the last strand was cut he could not open the lid, so ‘tightly was it fixed. At last when he felt the top slip he was frightened. Was this the long-expected moment? He crouched above the box, and his eyes gleamed with an unearthly light. Before him was idle happiness for the rest of his life—wealth, ease and safety. Twice his hands reached out to lift ‘the lid and twice he drew them back. His mouth was dripping and he breathed in gasps. He lifted the lid. So powerful was his. ten-year-old mental picture of what he would see that for nearly a minute he could not realize that what he saw was other than what, he had expected. The bottom of the bex was covefed with tiny bits of pale green paper that seemed to be alive. The stuff moved and crawied. Hagan moved the box mechanically under the light, and then he saw mixed ‘With the bits of paper hundreds of small ants who were working even on this day when their world was coming to an end. Hagan tilted the box, and in the corner at the bottom he saw a little hole—a hole about as large as the head of a pin, Lv} BY SENNETT STEPHENS FROM out of sleep and dreams we wake To other dreams, anf then a We each the self-same pathway take oo To sleep and dreams again! : ne y C OOO) A <HEO (C(O) nn)