The Argosy, April 1916 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

110 He was perhaps not unconscious of something there might be of sacrifice in his daughter’s uncomplaining willingness to suffer these constant postponements until they became a habit ever harder to re- linquish; and by way of compensation, it may be, he had allowed her almost as ~much freedom and authority in the house as would have been her mother’s right, from the time Susan began to show she had a mind of her own. Yet to-night all the tacit convention be- tween them was set aside. Michael Sands instantly realized it on entering the hall where were Captain Neville, Susan and her companion, Miss Addison, a gray little woman of faded prettiness and the waning forties. The captain’s usual smooth, heavy voice sounded sharp and nervous. His _ tall, spare frame was tense, but poised. It seemed to Sands that his white hair and pointed white beard gave him the look of a man much beyond fifty-seven, al- though this might only be a fancy because the captain’s ruddy, firm cheeks were now so pale and drawn. For all that, the penetrating black eyes, with whose every shade of feeling Sands was long familiar, sent forth their message of the man born to command. This impression was snapshotted in the brain of Michael Sands, who turned to re- treat from the hall almost as soon as he had set foot-in ‘it. “See you presently, captain,” he said, saluting. “Don’t go, Michael,” Captain Neville called across the room. “Come here. You can hear this to benefit, I’ve no doubt, as well as Susan and Miss Addison.” Whatever benefit Miss Addison was re- ceiving was perceptible only in a patheti- cally wry expression at the corners of her dried Cupid’s-bow mouth that presaged tears. Susan, handsomely lean and muscular, almost as tall as her father, glanced down and smoothed her blue skirt with one hand as the only mark of her embarrassment be- fore Michael. Then she faced her’ father resolutely though deferentially, with his same dark eyes and his same clear-cut patrician fea- tures. Father and daughter never resem- bled each other more closely. - “And I wish, Michael, that you make these new orders promptly known to every- THE ARGOSY. body on the plantation. The man or woman who disobeys them will be counted as one of the Settlement crew—importers or con- traband and mutineers, who are only await- ing the opportunity to rip open the throat of each man-jack of us here in the house. “‘We must look out for ourselves and we must look out for our women—these two and Rebecca in thé kitchen and her old mother, Jane. Yes, black as well as white must be cared for so long as they sail the course set for them.” “T take it,”’ Michael put in, “that you have no answer yet to your note to Over- seer Ransom.” “No,” Captain Neville growled, “though by the Lord Harry, I’ve given him an hour’s leeway! And I would not have done it if my most intelligent daughter here had not taken it into her head, on this of all nights, to go out round the cove with Oscar Molle in a launch—to do what, do you think? “Why, to play at shooting phosphorus fish because the night is favorable to the sport! Sport!” he ejaculated contemptu- ously. ‘‘In these days!” “Now, father—” Susan began. But he cut her off abruptly to say: “Miss Addison!” — The gray little lady understood his repri- mand, dabbed her eyes with her handker- chief, braced her square little shoulders and gazed straight across the captain’s shoulder down the vista of years, unquailing. “You heard Michael Sands and me, did you not, Susan, planning here this after- noon that he was to go to-night and smoke that old witch Juliet out of her snakes’ nest?” “¥ heard, father.” “You heard, too, after Black Henry was put in irons, that I was going to send an ultimatum to Ransom and his gang?” “Tf there had been anything I could do—” Susan began. “Nevertheless you calmly went out—for sport!’ Snapping his fingers, he turned away from her to Michael Sands. ‘Everybody, man or woman, must give you constant record of their goings and comings. Is that plain?” “Yes, captain,” and Michael saluted. “Half-moon House is under siege law until further orders,” Captain Neville added. | “Tl get things under way as soon as I’ve made my report, sir.” MICLOOOK (C@