Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

§2 GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD when back came the police. They must have reached some point —a customs post, I think—beyond which we could not have passed. ‘Three of them were riding south of the marsh, and three north—at the same time quartering the narrow strip of plain where we had lain down and covering the third track to the sands. In the direction of Posadas were more lights, carried by such of the sporting citizenry as were attracted by the chance of a free shot at human game. No hope for us there, either—so we cut down into the angle between the creek and the Parana where our first dash from the town had landed us. The whole of the hunt gradually converged upon our corner. I thought this was an unfortunate accident until a launch drifted down from Posadas and began to search the water’s edge with its light to prevent us swimming away. ‘The police knew exactly where we were. Long experience, and elimination of all the possibilities. “Why do they not bring nets?” Hilario whispered bitterly. He was hurt at being treated as something only fit for the taxi- dermist. After all, he knew that he was a harmless and honour- able boy on all occasions when convention did not call for murder. The advancing line, with one flank on the Parana and the other on the creek, became shorter as it approached us. ‘There was not a hope of breaking through. To judge by the lights, the gap between man and man was about forty yards and rapidly lessening. It was then that I began to see stars, and ascribed them to the crack I had received over the skull. It’s not what a man really feels that finishes him, but what he thinks he feels. Just because there was a sickening, pattern- less mess of lights in front of my eyes, I was ready to pass out. I told Rosalinda and Hilario to slip through the line if they saw the remotest chance, and leave me. ‘They were whispering excitedly in Guarani, and seemed un- reasonably hopeful. ‘But why? Why give up now?” Rosalinda asked me. There was a sob of disappointment in her voice, just as if I had refused her something which she had set her heart on, when all the rest of her world had agreed. I tried to pull myself together, and noticed that some of the lights, instead of dancing in front of my eyes, were stationary in _ Rosalinda’s hair. Then I understood. There had been a batch of fireflies on the river flats. ‘The muggy weather and the hot north wind had brought on the one day in twenty-eight that I was telling you about. They might have been ants or flies or these savage-looking comiclooks.comn