Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 146 No. 4 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

and broke athwart her bow. All eyes were riveted on the China Queen, whose stern was high im the air, her forward end entirely submerged, clearly set- tling for her final. plunge. Slowly, then With increasing rapidity, she slipped be- neath the waves. A muffled concussion, fol- lowed by a surface disturbance, indicated that her boilers had blown up. At some distance away from her, three _ white specks bobbed upon the water. They were her lifeboats, with their cargo of hu- man lives who would soon be thirsty, and would want to drink— Fang Wu hugged the image to himself. He would give much cask, many faels, to view the ravages of that thirst quenching. He debated, pleasurably, the comparative values between the first expressions of hor- ror that would come into the faces of the drinkers when they realized that the water had been poisoned, and the later expres- sions of despair, tragedy, pain— “We will now,” he said to Tsin, “ attend _to- our guests—Miss MacTavern, the inter- fa ~@ z ‘ « i an . - ™ » ~ ate ae 4 < oe & ty ~ staring stupidly at : cw empty Bands tof which the eeler had been snatched. ms Fang Wu shrugged. ; “T am afraid they have beem learning a few little tricks from me. Well, let us leok for them. It wilk be a pleasing divertise- ment to while away the monotonous mo-_ ments on board. Come, captain!” CHAPTER XXIII, DEFENSE. URING the confusion following the arrival of Fang Wu, the firing of the Yung Swei’s battery, with its attend ant veil of smoke, Rutledge had not been diddling his thumbs. In spite of the tragic qualities of the situation, he was filled with an irrepressible sense of happiness at hay ing his ginger-headed piece in sight again. As he would prebably be killed anyway, what more glorious death could there be than to offer his life in one supreme effort for her sake? Ah, dulce et decorum est pro Rujusa mori! Reneuncing her dimmed into a, childish pastime in comparison with that. He pointedly winked and screwed his face into an expression intended te denote reassurance at her, through a rift im the smoke eddies from the first round. He was beth relieved and shocked when she delib- erately winked back. There was nothing amateurish about that wink. Rutledge decided that the thing of im- mediate importance was to get her away at once to some place in which they could barricade themselves, and where he would be able to defend her. At first he had thought of grabbing her and leaping over the side, then towing her, if necessary, back to the lifeboats <=