The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

140 root of this business, whoever he was. Had he been holding the lantern in- stead of the woman, Feltnar would have taken a shot at him with the rifle he carried. He came panting to the top and reached the old woman at last. She started with a cry when she saw him, and swung the lantern behind her back. ‘What are you doing, you miserable creature?” the American demanded shrilly. “ Don’t you know those are human beings out there in that ship? You want to have their blood on your hands, do you? Give me that lamp!” He snatched at it, but the Wild Woman fought him off like a roused tigress. “Away, away!” she yelled. “ You should never have come here! Have I not told you? You bring trouble and death with you.” “Stop that squalling!’” he com- manded. “ You’re helping those fiends vonder to get that ship ashore. Do you know what you’re about?” She clung to the lantern. He heard hasty steps upon the rocks. He thought it was Bobolink. But suddenly a fierce hand seized him and flung him back. He turned to see a tall, bearded man, with flashing eyes and upraised fist. From his shoulders floated a long cloak, and he cried something in a dialect that Feltnar did not under- stand. THE ARGOBSY. ‘““Ah, you scoundrel!” shouted the American, and, unequal as the chance was, he flung himself at the wrecker. The man’s long arms ¢elutched him around with a grip that nearly cost the young man his breath. Another mo- ment and-he was pitched back to the rock with considerable force. | But in falling Feltnar came down upon the rifle he had dropped when he strove with the Wild Woman. Now he seized it, and, aiming quickly at the lantern which the woman was again swinging, he sent the bullet crashing through the glass. The wick was snuffed out instantly. But there was sufficient light on the rock for the various actors in the scene to take in each other. Bobolink came up, panting, and seeing the stranger about to pitch upon the fallen Amer- ican again, the hboat-steerer seized the empty pea rifle and swung it above his head. | In another instant the stock would have crashed into the wrecker’s brain, when a cry from Feltnar stayed the sailor’s hand. “Don’t, don’t kill him!” he com- manded. “ He deserves it, but I sup- pose the fellow saved my life once and I can’t see, him slain. Perhaps the bark is saved, anyway.” But at that moment another rocket sailed upward from the deck of the whale ship, revealing the fact that she was now Close in shore. (To be continued.) BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK. WITHOUT we heard the north wind roar, The night we played at battledore ; Without we heard the north wind mock, The night we played at shuttlecock. And more and more, and more and more— The night we played at battledore, I felt my heart with every shock Tossed like the smitten shuttlecock. And since that night my heart is sore— The night we played at battledore ; And since that night I take no stock In battledore and shuttlecock. Clinton Seollard. (SO MICOOO (COL