Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

458 bound and the engine stalled. And Billy Nock was so rattled he forgot to steer backward, so that we just set stern-fore- most for that round head of steel. Back—back—at that steel can of sud- den and unpremeditated death! The girl gave a shriek of terror that made my star- tled stomach-pit sink a mile or so. It completely drove from my head the plan I had suddenly formed and was rising to execute—a dive over the opposite side. It made Healey’s hand slip from the crank and dropped him full length in the for- ward cockpit. I never shall know what it did to Billy Nock. For I was watching with fasci- nated horror the movements of Louie, who was leaping over the stern deck and sticking his foot out to push the mine and us apart before we made another more violent bump than the bare shave we had accomplished the first time. It might be the height of presence of mind; it might be just a little the worst thing in the world to do. Louie didn’t know, I didn’t know, nobody knew. We just waited and waited, and— Boom! As I toppled off the cockpit seat I saw Louie drop overboard. That is all I can account for. And then, just before I passed away, there came another boom— a trifle muffled, so that it didn’t sound much too large for the general blow-up of creation. I don’t really believe I fainted or lost consciousness. My first impression tend- ed to confirm the old adage that marriages are made in heaven. For there, right be- fore my eyes, stood the wonderful girl, though we had never even been intro- duced to each other on earth. But my next sense was one of doubt about the heaven part of it. My head had hit and was still resting on a corner of the hot exhaust muffler, and there was nothing suggestive of heaven about that, or in the remark I heard Louis sputtering in the water outside the boat. I could not imagine any one in heaven exclaiming: THE ARGOSY. “ Huh! Well, I'll be damned!” Since he was going right on pretty vo- ciferously, making himself the noisiest center for the moment, I got up, and be- gan to rub the scorched back of my head preparatory to stepping over to the side where he clung. Then I didn’t step. I stood still and stared. It wasn’t our little mine that had blown up at all. The lesser bang had evidently issued from a gun on the deck of a very businesslike little patrol launch, which was now proceeding deviously but with evident intent of reaching Louie’s yacht. A blurry puff of blue smoke hung lazily about a hundred yards behind the launch’s present position. But about a quarter of a mile seaward from our small ship was a bank of yellow smoke that made a perfect cloud of itself. It was a mine blown up out there to hint to the captain of the yacht that it might be safer to lie still and have a talk than to attempt any swift getaway. Apparently the little tender had escaped observation thus far, and the owner of the yacht was supposed to be aboard. I figure that the heavy fog which had broken but fifteen minutes before our arrival at the island had enabled us to get in unobserved, especially since we had ar- rived on that side of the island where there was no sign of life. The only explanation I have ever thought up for our getting through the nice network of mines as we did is be- cause Louie’s yacht was one of those ex- treme shallow-draft affairs which really had no business venturing quite so far at sea at all, and couldn’t have hit a mine that couldn’t have been in plain view of a lookout on a real steamer. However it had happened, there we were, and there was the yacht between the terrifically evident mines and the per- fectly obvious and leisurely self-assured patrol boat. Also, there was the girl! She recurred to my mind when Louie, now only knee-deep in the water, stopped his profane sputterings and turned to her. As he ‘spoke I, too, looked at her. She CO DOOK AMUC C©