Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

FORTUNE UNAWARES. shaped explosives. The purpose was clear. If we could drive off the boats, clinging like leeches to the carcass of a caraboa, we might discourage the attack. If we couldn’t get rid of them the last resort would be to slip cables. and steam out to sea, fighting as we went, hoping to shake them off. But every man had been pressed into service to repel the boarders and wé had none to spare for the engines. The grenades turned the trick. The prahus were joined together with coir yarns and the explosions tore them apart aside from maiming those who remained in them. Some sank, more drew away, with their oc- cupants yelling at their fellows on deck. There was a moment of uncertainty. We began flinging the grenades at them as they swarmed back to the rail. Almost as quick- ly as they had swarmed up they retreated. The prahus paddled swiftly off to windward, separating as they went to diminish the effect of our rapid-fire in the bows, now at work once more. Westward and seaward they went, to gather in a cluster and dis- appear around the western end of Balam- bangan. I looked at ‘the sun. to have lifted. ‘How long did that last?” I asked En Sue. He looked at his watch. “ Not more than fifteen minutes.” “ Will they be coming back again?” “T am afraid so. They have got a fair half of us out of the fight in dead and wounded. We may have killed a hundred of them. Even if we have killed twice that it leaves the odds greater than ever. They will quarrel among themselves for a while and each leader will blame the other. But they will come back.” I looked down on the deck of the Little Dragoon. O’Rourke was down there, ap- plying his surgery. An awning was being already rigged up above our wounded, the pirates were being thrown overboard indis- criminately. Circling the ship were hun- dreds of sharks, swarming forward at each plunge of a body, shouldering each other out of the water. Li Yuen was gazing westward through his binoculars. “T don’t like the look of that sky,” he It seemed hardly 431 said. ‘“‘We may have to get out of here, though that means meeting them with a divided crew.” Chinaways, the sky held a peculiar cop- pery tinge that was swiftly spreading to- ward the zenith. Clouds that I used to call thunderheads, as a boy, were forming. And the brassy taste of the air was stronger than ever. ‘ Better get some food served out,” sug- gested En Sue. ‘ Our friends are about to pay us another visit.” Out from the far side of Balambangan came the pirate flotilla, once more in close formation. They were too small a target and too long a range for efficient work with the rapid-firer. A shell fell short and showed them their immunity. They came on in mass, ready to split for the rush. Through the glasses I could see them sliding fast before the wind, their prows feathered. I am sure that I was not afraid, but I was very certain that this time they would overwhelm us. En Sue seemed to share the mood. ‘“ At any rate, they won’t get the ruby,” he said. ‘I think the grenades are our best bet, once they get to close quarters.” The first exclamation I had ever heard from Li Yuen passed his lips. “Chai-yah!” he cried. “‘ That’s why the barometer was pumping. Look at that!” The coppery sky to westward was still lurid toward the horizon, but at the zenith it had darkened and deadened to a slaty gray, which in turn blended into the blue of the eastern half. One-half the sea- scape smiled, the other threatened. Irom the darkest portion tenuous lengths of black vapor were swinging downward toward the sea, the main mass of cloud from which they took shape lowering with them. Lower and lower they crept with a swinging, pen- dulous motion that was irresistibly mindful of the action’ of an elephant’s trunk, grop- ing with an apparently defined purpose. I counted nine of them before things hap- pened to take my mind off any matter of definite number. As they gyrated on their practically ver- ticai axes they formed a cordon on three sides of the flotilla of canoes that remained still huddled together like sheep at the ap- COmicCclbooks.CGom