Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

94 pilin’ up a bow-wave and sailin’ twenty knots, like the wind was roarin’ like the Bull o’ Barney! And yet there warn’t a sireak of air!” “You seen the Flyin’ Dutchman—that’s what you seen! Are you comin’ aboard, or shall I shove off and tell McCorkle you’re refusin’ to obey his orders?” “You bloody well know Ill come aboard. You scull. My ’ands is ’elpless. Wrists as good as broke—every bone in ’em!” He jumped into the dinghy, his clumsi- ness tipping her gunwale, too, despite his light weight. He was the incarnation of indecision, despair, fear. Physically as well as mentally he was helpless. His own recital, in fact, had served to throw him again into his former funk. ‘ Look here, Wing, I ain’t so sure but that you've clicked. It was the Flyin’ Dutchman orl right! That explains everything! The pirate, who rose up outn the mire. The other pirate’s face I seen—a little one wiv rat’s eyes. You've clicked! Think Id stay aboard the lugger after that? I guess bloody well not. We got to stick together—the four of us. It was the Flyin’ Dutchman, orl righto!”’ Wing set to his work earnestly. The twisting movement of his hand as he sculled was balanced by a similar movement of his head. Dorset, sitting shivering on a thwart, his chin in his hands, was trying to recall that terrifying picture. : “Tt seems to me she only had one mast,” he was saying half to himself, half to the old seaman standing above him. “ A mast as high as that there ’ouse, b’God!” In his hysterical fright, the little sloop had seemed gigantic as it came out of the mist. “And there warn’t no list to the mast neither. Stuck up like a maypole, s’help me! She had a mainsail and one jib. Might have had a topsail—I don’t know. She was so big, and the mist hung down so low, that she seemed to touch the sky with her masthead. Leastwise her sails was bellyin’ out. Fore-and-aft—that was the rig— Wot the hell are you laffin’ at?” Wing continued sculling, puffing at his work and chuckling heartily. “A Flyin’ Dutchman _fore-and-aft ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. rigged!” he laughed. ‘‘ Sure—that explains everythin’! I seen ships sailin’ without no wind; I seen pirates comin’ up out of swamps; I seen purple crocodiles, too, and red girafts. But I never had the D. T.’s so bad that I seen a Flyin’ Dutchman with a sloop rig—so help me God!” Dorset set his chattering teeth in a sulky fit of silence. Wing was a very old and very cynical man. He would believe noth- ing. All unfamiliar aspects of nature he attributed to his own peculiar and common aifliction—the D. T.’s. And even the re- velations of that disease—when described by somebody else—he took with a grain of salt. 7 “Tell it to McCorkle,’ Wing was chuckling as he sculled his boat up on the mud beach of the islet. ‘‘ And don’t forget to mention that there little p’int about the fore-and-aft riggin’!” They landed. The bewildered little donkeyman followed old Wing up toward the chateau. Dorset had no conception, so to speak, of his bearings. He might have been dreaming. It might have been a visitation from hell—that ship and those pirates. He felt his wrists. They were raw and still bleeding. That at least was an effect of reality. But the devil—who was said to visit the Raiglon Chateau—could have inflicted those wounds! They walked up over the sand dunes, and Dorset stumbled over the carcass of the steer. He fell into Wing’s arms with a shrick. The old seaman had to literally pack him off—a dead weight—toward the chateau. He had not struggled very far along that sand trail, however, before he experienced a very violent shock—violent even to a grim and worn-out old seadog such as Wing. He saw the mast and stays of some sort of sail- boat the hull of which was hidden away in the tules. It might have been there when he sculled his boat down the inlet to get Dorset. And yet he could not be sure. He had sculled his little craft straight down through the lily-pads, whereas this sailboat would unquestionably have found it necessary to tack far out toward the other side of the inlet to get sufficient water. COPMICLOOOKS (F@)