Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

716 As they met, each clutching the hand- rail in quick attempt to save himself, the Barbuda suddenly wallowed down into the cavernous trough between two monster seas. Before she could right herself, a huge wave towered over her. She started to rise to it, but it caught her on the beam, and, ° keeling her perilously over, crashed across her, splintering everything in its path aft. It demolished the little wireless-house, car- ried away the after-rail and the ladder on the weather side, and hurtled the two men hanging between decks athwart the ship and into the boiling smother below. Down on the main deck the mate and the chief, dragging hastily improvised oil-bags to the after-well deck, found themselves suddenly engulfed in the same torrent of water. Wreckage from above beat them down—they washed over the lee side of the - Barbuda as it sloped into the sea, like the rest of the inanimate matter in the swirling rush of waters. There was one other besides the helpless captain who heard the rending and smash- ing of wood that accompanied the shipping of that monster sea. Down in the hnen-room, on the saloon- deck—surrounded on three sides by shelves stacked high with bedding, linen, and blan- kets, a woman stood in the dark, her hands grasping at whatever support she could find, in her effort to remain on her feet. “Oh!” she gasped as the ship finally righted herself. ‘ Thank God, I am here to take care of Captain Buchanan! They would have forced me to go, if they’d found me. They’d have made me abandon him— myidear old friend. “ They never thought of the linen-room —if they missed me at all. Ill get the wireless man to send them word I’m ssfe.. Oh!” She grasped a stanchion again, as the Barbuda, trembling and creaking as if she were about to break up, wallowed into the trough of another sea. ‘““T must manage to get above and to the captain!’ Katrina thought desperately. Though how she was to accomplish this in the teeth of the gale was something she could not imagine. In the dark she stumbled over a big stack of sheets that had dropped from one of the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, - . & ver = & = Gem ~- ee OT ee —@n Pe an- - shelves. She pitched forward onto hex knees. She had locked the linen-room doar after hiding herself, for fear some one migh¢ open it and discover her. She had had the key since earlier in the day, having gone to the big locker for tow- els when the doctor was with the captain, It was the possession of the key that made her think of the linen-room as a good place to hide, so she could remain aboard the ship and be with her good friend the cap- tain. Katrina was flung against the door by a sudden lunge of the ship. She canght the knob for support and with her free hand groped for the key beneath. It was not there! | Wildly she turned the knob, shaking the door in an effort to wrench it open. It did not give. As she stooped down to feel for the key on the deck—for surely it must have been Knocked from the keyhole—her head sud- denly swam. She realized for the first time that she had not had a night’s good sleep since leaving port. The linen-room was close, and she was conscious of an over- whelming drowsiness. She felt about for the key, but without succeess. “ Maybe a nap would make me more fit,” she murmured faintly to herself. She crawled to one of the low, wide shelves where the blankets were stored. By bend- ing double she managed to get onto the tier of soft woolen covers. Better this Cramped space than the middle of the room where she would be constantly battered by falling heaps of sheets. _ It was stifling, but she was too worn-out. to mind the discomfort. As if she had been drugged, she fell at once into a deep sleep, Katrina’s awakening, some hours later, was rude and violent. She found herself whirling off the shelf into space, and only the heaps of linen on the deck kept her from a fall which might have resulted in injury. As it was, she was severely shaken, and she lay on the slanting deck, tumbled over with a conglomeration of stuff from the shelves. The Barbadu was on her beam ends. From her disordered sanctuary the girl. could hear a crashing sea sweep over the GOR GDOO ‘SS (CO