Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

BUCCANEER BLOOD. reeled back as she awoke to what had hap- pened. He had not only stopped her but had held her in his arms! She felt her cheek which was wet. Cameron’s clothes were still dripping from his swim. She held up her palms and looked at them dum- founded—as if her delicate white hands had been stained. Her angry lips were parted, curled upward in the slight shadow of a smile. Then she came to herself. He had been arbitrary—erdering her to stay in her room while he went downstairs. Downstairs to what purpose? To sacrifice himself before those hideous man-beasts down there! She turned to the door again, where that little human gargoyle—the drave’s servant —was standing, gun in hand, listening breathlessly at the partly opened door. She herself looked out across the boy’s tousled hair into the depths of the dark hall. She evoked a terrible picture of that paragon of strength and manhood whose sinewy arms had but a moment before held her. In her vision she saw him cut down mercilessly by that pack of beasts. She clutched the boy impulsively; she put her slender fingers through the spiky hair; she encircled him with her trembling arm. Unknown to her—needless to say— she was carressing an effigy of his master. “ Mon petit!” “ Now what?” He turned to her impa- tiently. Her whisper had cut in, strangely alien, to that rumble of men’s voice down below. “We cannot let him go to his death alone, mon petit!” “To his death!” the boy scoffed. “ He'll have the whole crew kissin’ the decks, so help me!” “We must go to him!” She brushed him aside. He did not attempt to repulse her. Her motive, he could scarcely help seeing, was a noble one. “ Damme, lady!” he cried, “the skip- per’s orders was to stay above while he went aboard of them cutthroats. But I can’t do it, lady. This is no time to stay above with womenfolk when the fight’s be- low!” They tiptoed out into the hall. 99 In the darkness there was the nebulous glow that came up the grand staircase from the candles of the banquet hall. ‘* Follow me lady—a pace or two aft, and belay hangin’ onto my hand. Don’t want nothin’ foulin’ me when I start firin’!” When they looked down over the balus- trade into the main hall and through the great arched doorway that gave in to the dining hall they saw a picture that satisfied the souls of the boy and of Jacqueline— ultimately, and perfectly. They say what all the world worships—the hero who can never lose; they saw the idol with super- human power; they saw a champion win- ning his fight: the girl saw her druve—the boy saw his hero-skipper—standing on the lower landing of the staircase and holding his six-gun so that it covered the gang. Jacqueline, surprised but no longer terri- fied, saw three strangers down there instead of two. There was the fat, chunky man still seated in the cathedral chair, his hairy paws upraised, his swollen flabby lips parted, his red-veined eyes bulging. At his elbow was the kinky-haired octo- roon holding up his arms which seemed strangely elongated, grotesque, ape-like. Far back, towards the entrance hall was an old man holding up palsied hands. Look- ing down from the top of the stairs, Jacque- line could see little of this figure, except the leather-visored cap and the white uncut hair of the head, nodding in an excited but meaningless rhythm. Quintilian, the old servant, was on his knees, his dry black hands clasped, his wrinkled lips gibbering prayers. The only other visible presence in that scene was the grandmother—the most com- manding, the most dramatic—standizg by the table with the full glow of the candles upon her grim, yellowish face; serene and implacable in this moment of victory. But there was one guest who had. just arrived at the chateau, whom Jacqueline did not see And for that matter, his presence was unknown to the provisional master of the situation—Cameron. The cockney engineer—a shivering and terror-stricken wisp of humanity—had just arrived from the lugger, in response to his chief’s summons. His funk had been so CORmMICLOOOkKS )