The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

444 A SECRET OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC, Thorne felt the yarn which held his wrists part. He shook the cords from him and tore the bandage from his eyes. He looked on sky and sea—on the gray shingle and the towering bluffs. The tide had just turned and in the inlet behind him the water was rushing back into the tunnel. It would soon sweep his bullet riddled body into the © darkness. He faced his murderers dully. Some of the faces revealed hesitation— some indifference. But one there was that showed murder in every line. Some bullets might fly wild when the word came to fire, but Atwell’ would reach its mark unerringly. Thorne moistened his lips and spoke. - ‘‘ I am ready,”’ he said. But at the very moment his lips formed the words there was the splash of oars behind him in the inlet—an exclamation in a strange tongue—a hastily uttered order. Thorne did not turn. He scarcely heard the interruption. He gained his knowledge of it from the sudden change in the faces before him. | ‘’ Drop those weapons !’’ a voice shouted from the inlet. Then Thorne looked around. A large boat, manned by brawny, bare armed men dressed in white, had just come out of thetunnel. ‘The men were brown—the chocolate brown peculiar to the South Pacific islander. Some of them brandished long oars ; but fully half.a dozen had rifles. In the bow stood the owner of the voice that had uttered the order—a tall, commanding man—a white man—with flowing gray hair and beard. And beside him was a woman. ‘Thorne looked on in the same dazed fashion, as the man and his armed associates leaped ashore. ‘‘ Almost a murder, eh?’’ said the leader sternly. Then he repeated an order to his men and they disarmed the mutineers. ‘‘ And who are you, sir?’’ he asked, approaching ‘Thorne. The woman had disembarked, too, and was by his side. ’Ihorne’s gaze went beyond his interrogator and rested on her face. And it was the face of Sydney Latimer. ‘“ This is he,’’ she said to her companion. ‘T’hen she stepped forward and took Thorne’s hand. ‘‘ Don’t you know me, Mr. Thorne—Howard?”’ she asked, looking up at him with tear blinded eyes. ‘‘ This is your father— Edgar Thorne. I have told him about you.’’ The reprieved man reeled and would have fallen had the other not caught him in his arms. CHAPTER XV.—A CrirF ENCIRCLED PARADISE. SUDDENLY Thorne awoke and opened his eyes. He was lying in a grass hammock in the shade of a thatched veranda. A pleasant, undulating country, with smooth green meadows checked off with little garden patches, was stretched out before him. In each garden plot was a low hut with a conical thatched roof. He did not know where he was. He was in that blissful state between waking and sleeping where a man cares neither where he is nor what has happened ; when wonders cease to amaze and mysteries to perplex. | Eomichook 3