Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

ARGOSY-ALLSTORY | VoL. CLIX SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1924 NUMBER 6 || ——= By KENNETH PERKINS Author of ‘‘ Queen of the Night,’’ ‘‘ Desert Voices,’’ etc. CHAPTER I. THE MULECART AND THE TOMB. ECLUDED in the grove of swamp S palmetto just behind that disreputable sailors’ lodging house called the Sun- down Café there was a landmark which be- spoke a glorious hour of history—an hour that had flamed up and died. It was a tomb with slabs of granite resolutely hold- ing themselves in place despite the crum- bling mortar. The iron open work of its massive doors was dingy, green, rusted; the columns of the grim facade were traced with 1A the mud tunnels of ants, like stiff legs with a plenitude of varicose veins. There was a bizarre splendor about this old mausoleum on that night when the moon was red over the bayous and the mangrove swamps. It was worthy, in its massive lines and foreboding fortress-like architec- ture, of the Mexican general who had con- structed it for himself. It belonged to the crimson moon, the tepid Gulf night, to the sound of drunk Cajans singing in the ship channel, to the muffled pulse of guitars in the sailors’ lodging house, to the croon of the warm wind coming over the cane-brake, 801 CORE ool S CO