The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 3 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

436 THE ARGOSY. Millie stood still, quite dazed now to confront at last the reality of ‘all this amazing narrative, which bore the semblance of a dream in spite of = efforts to rouse herself into a realization of its positive truth. Thrice the signals came, each time nearer and nearer, as often abel from the strand. ‘Thank God! They are safe. I know from that signal that all is well on board—that all my strange apprehensions which have so long haunted me are groundless. Now for a new life! Millie, we shall secure this treasure here on shore, then in the propitious Wizard be off for the South Seas, to return only when the most fabulous wealth on earth is ours; then we shall bury the precious olivine cathode in forty fathoms of ocean, and keep the secret till another generation. Ah, does not life seem worth living again ? Ho! Again they are signaling. I must answer.’’ Marks bent down in the damp sand, his eyes on the water, but suddenly he uttered a sharpcry. ‘‘Distress!’’ he moaned. ‘‘ That is the signal of distress. Great heavens! Something has happened Suddenly, and without any sign of warning, there flashed from the turrets of some strange and gigantic Goliath nearly a mile to the southeast a ter- rible ray of light, arrow tipped as with living fire, of such power and bril- liancy that, as it poured its concentrated volume through the solid night, it - bathed the mysterious ship, advancing shoreward so stealthily, from stem to stern in a white coronal of glory. Bullets it might have escaped with ease in the night, but that awful eye from the behemoth’s decks there was no avoiding. Marks was quivering in every respect. He was speechless. ‘‘ What is it, Jack ?’’ cried the astonished woman, appalled and suddenly frozen to the heart by the strange spectacle. ‘‘ A cruiser,’’ moaned Marks. ‘CA what, Jack ?’’ ‘* A cruiser—a government sea hound. Oh, the scoundrels; they have tracked me at last 2 ‘* Who—who ?”’ ‘‘ Those gutter rats of Wall Street whom I gave a scourging ‘yestertues Ah, Millie, this is the end of ends, I fear. They have set the government’s Cerberus upon us, believing that I am in league with some gigantic combi- nation of pirate ships 2 But the hard sentence was never finished. ‘‘ Boom! boom !’’ thundered the cruiser’s guns over the black waste like a voice of cruel judgment. They could see both shots zip through the sheet of solid white flame that bathed the mysterious ship from the cruiser’s search light. The first shot crossed her bows; but the second—ill fated blow of destiny! —seemed to swerve from its course, crashing through the Wizard at the water line just forward of the forecastle. Marks sank in his tracks with a deep moan, his head bowed down in his encircling arms. He could not bear to see what was to follow—what soon did follow. : There was a desperate scramble on both ships’ decks now. On the i Eomicbooks (E()