Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

PAWNED. lending unreality to the scene, exciting. the Mmagination to exaggerate the details, but the swimmer seemed to move with incred- ible speed, with the lithe, terrible swiftness. of a panther in its spring. The rope-end swished through the air, missing a sud- denly-lowered head by the barest fraction of an inch, and then, driven home with lightning-like rapidity, so quick that the blows seemed as one, the swimmer’s fists swung, right and left, crashing with terrific impact to the point of the mate’s jaw. And the mate’s head jolted back, quivered gro- tesquely on his shoulders for an instant like a tuning fork, sagged, and the great bulk of the man collapsed and sprawled inertly on the deck. There was a shuffle of feet from the al- leyway, cries. The swimmer swung to face the expected rush, and it halted, hesitant. ‘ It gave him time to spring and stand erect upon the steamer’s rail. On the upper deck faces and forms began to appear. A man in pajamas leaned far out and peered at the scene. There was a shout from out of the dark, grouped throng in the alleyway; it was chorused. The rush came on again for the rail; and the dripping figure that stood there, with the first sound that he had made—a laugh, half bitter, half of cool contempt—turned, and with a clean dive took the water again and disappeared. Presently he reached the shore. There were more than riding lights out there on the steamer now. He gave one glance in that direction, shrugged his shoulders, and started off along the road. At times he raised his hand to brush it across his face where the welt, raw and swollen now, was a dull red sear. He walked neither fast nor slow. The moonlight caught the dripping fig- ure now and then in the open spaces, and seemed to peer inquisitively at the great breadth of shoulder, and the rippling play of muscle under the thin cotton drawers and shirt, which, wet and clinging, almost transparent, scarce hid the man’s naked- ness; and at the face, that of a young man, whose square jaw was locked, whose gray eyes stared steadily along the road, and over whose forehead, from the drenched, 293 untrimmed mass of fair hair, the brine trickled in little rivulets as though persis- tent in its effort to torture with its salt caress the raw, skin-broken flesh across the cheeks. Then presently a point of land ran out, and, the road ignoring this, the bay behind was shut out from view. And presently again, farther on, the road came to a long white stretch of beach on the one hand, and foliage and trees on the other. And here the dripping figure halted and stood. hesitant as though undecided between the moonlit stretch of sand, and the darkness of a native hut that was dimly outlined amongst the trees on the other side of the road. At a moment he made his way to the hut, and groping around secured some matches and a box of cigarettes. He spoke into the empty blackness. “You lose, Nanu,” he muttered whimsi- cally. ‘‘ They wouldn’t stand water and I left them for you. But now, you see, I’m back again, after all.” | He lighted a cigarette, and in the fildme of the match stared speculatively at the small, broken pieces of coral that made the floor of the hut, and equally, by the addi- tion of a thin piece of native matting, his bed. ‘The sand is softer,’ he said with a grim draw). He went out from the hut, crossed the road, flung himself upon his back on the beach, and clasped his hands behind his head. The smoke from his cigarette curled languidly upward in wavering spirals, and he stared for a long time at the moon. “Moon madness,” he said at last. “They say if you look long enough the old bay does you in.” The cigarette finished, he flung the stub away. After a time, he raised his head and listened. A moment later he lay back again full length on the sand. The sound of some one’s footsteps coming rapidly along the road from the direction of the town was now unmistakably audible. ‘The jug for mine, I guess,’ observed the young man to the moon, ‘“ Probably a file of native constabulary in bare feet that you can’t hear bringing.11p the rear!” whe, (CO