Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

_ we ree TE iy, wit a aw gate cay =, eee ee Prete 7 ggg gape ® an, Ange O-— cng <ames* ate - ~* « (te) Still there was no sien of the Koromanti. And wherever her eyes fell, they fell upon _ wreckage. The Barbuda was a shorn hulk. For a few moments she stood looking out upon the harried sky and the sullen, angry seas. She was not afraid. She had realized, the night before, that the Koromanti would have to steam away from too close quar- ters with the disabled ship, in order to in- sure her own safety. “They’re probably right near us in this murk— if it were not so thick I could see them,” she reassured herself. Then she remembered Baker, the wire- less man. She suddenly realized that down the length of devastated boat-deck some- thing was missing. Her breath caught as she looked again and saw, where the little wireless office had stood, nothing but splin- tered ruins. “ But—oh! That wireless man!” Ka- trina gasped, horrified. ‘‘ I can’t believe he was swept away—maybe he is below with the mate and the chief and Godfrey. I'll go down and find them.” But her lagging feet dragged her slowly ' back to the skipper’s quarters. Some pre- monition of evil gripped her—she seemed to sense the extent of the disaster that had swept over the Barbuda during her im- prisonment in the linen-Yoom. She sensed her aloneness with the dead man, and sank down into a chair and closed her eyes agaist the horror of It all. Alone—alone with a dead, staring frgure —on an abandoned hulk—a derelict—with nothing about her but 2 gray void of sullen seas and lowering skies. But as she sat, thinking, there came a little tug at her wet skirts. She looked y down. There, with his tail high a friendly look in his eyes, was Ben Ali, the captain’s kitten. As the girl stared he scrambled into her lap. With a quick sob Katrina snatched the little warm cat to her breast. “ Ben Ali!’”’ she murmured. “ Ben Ali! Why, you poor little mite! I had forgotten all about you!” She bent her head against him, and he snuggled in her arms. Sud- denly she started up. ‘“‘ The sheep!” she exclaimed. ‘The sheep in the _ bridge- casing! Oh, they must have been battered ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, to death in the storm! I must get down te them. And I must get Ben Ali something to eat, poor little thing! I know there is plenty of tinned milk!” Putting the kitten down in the chair from which she had just risen, she made her way out of the room and hastened as well as she could down to the lower deck. The fury of the storm had abated. Though the sea was still running high, the wind’s force was not’so great. Katrina put her hand on the knob to open the door, when— it was opened from the inside, and she found herself looking into the flashed face of Lawrence Thorpe. CHAPTER VI. DERELICTS. | HETHER the shock was greater te Katrina than to Thorpe -would be hard to say. If she had imagmed herself alone aboard the derelict, he had, so he thought, made dure he was. He brushed a hand over his eyes and stared at her. Then he spoke. “ Are you real—or am fF in the throes of seeing thmgs?” “TJ am real,” Katrina answered simply, “ But I thought every one else was off the Barbuda.”’ “‘ So did I think so.” Thorpe’s voice was gruff. ‘‘I have been from top to bottom of this wreck, and have found no hving person but you.” . Katrina shuddered. ‘‘ You—found the captain?” “T saw him—yes. Have you been im hrs neil “Yes. He must have thought he was all alone. And he was helples. He never would have done that, otherwise.” Thorpe looked away through the thick murk. He pressed his hand against his head now and then. _ “ How did you happen to be teft here?” he asked the girl. Briefly she told him. “¢ Captain Buchanan was the only real friend I had m the world,” she fintshed, with a sob in her voice. “IE coutdn’t have _ left him here and gone to the other ship.” COMIC OOOkKS.conn