Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

“ITT WAS WAR.” raider still yawned for more and more bags of black, dirty coal—that Louie told me the outcome of the confab in the shack. ; “He won’t let us go,” mourned Hart- mann. “He wouldn’t take my oath or my word as a gentleman, or my check for half a million, as security for our keeping our mouths shut about this black hole. He said the secret--was too important to trust with any one. We're here—here, Harry—until the island’s discovered by the British or the end of the infernal war.” “ Well—” I couldn’t help it if my tone lacked the mournfulness of his. It might take time to win the affections of the love- ly, stormy: little adopted American— ‘Well, the man next me at the table was just telling me all this stuff about Ger- many’s being at the end of her rope is bosh. He says the Central Powers can keep up the fight for ten years.” Louie looked as if he wanted to bite me. “TI thought you called yourself a paci- fist!’ he snapped. ‘I always knew that was just another alias for a damned pro- German. You sound as if the idea of ten years more war tickled you.” Well—if it should take me that long— maybe it did. II. Ir ex-Warden Osborne ever wants to get some rudimentary points on the real way to make a prison the sort of place for which an old offender will long with pangs of homesickness, I’m the man to give any points the criminal’s friend may have overlooked. I think that next week had almost got Louie resigned to our gloomy prospect. Certainly our captors spared no pains to make us feel at home. They dined with us that night, and they lunched with us next day, and they accepted another invi- tation to another dinner in the evening. They sang lively songs to console us for our loneliness, and grew happy over our being consoled until they sang the 465 mournful songs that showed they were really overjoyed themselves. By the third night it looked as if the festivities were at an end. They had eaten us out of provisions. But, on the fourth day they gave us generously of their own meager stock in pay and seemed to love us as well as they had while we were playing the hosts. And that night the raider,’ which had sailed away before dawn of the day after our arrival, came in with all hands sing- ing. It seemed that the three previous trips had been lean ones in the matter of securing food supplies. The ships they had caught had been inward bound, near the end of their trips and of their provi- sions. This time fortune was kindlier. Two passenger ships had been bagged within _an hour of leaving South American ports, their buffets perfectly intact. Also there had been no difficulty in quickly landing the passengers, before they had time to raise appetites after the scare of being captured. The raider was fairly fat with food, and the stock of two first-class and one second-class bars. The genial captain had not had time to acquaint himself with our existence the day we came; but he now sent us over an invitation to dine with the officers of his vessel and the lieutenant in charge of the island station. Of course this affair start- ed off a lot stiffer than our previous din- ners had, inasmuch as the invited includ- ed none of the low-ranked men of either ship or shore. But it soon warmed up. The captain made us the guests of honor, seating us at either side of his own plate. The first toast proposed’ was a long and painstakingly pronounced eulogy of the President of the United States. I an- swered it with a pxan of praise for the kaiser, which was so warm they voted to drink it in schnapps instead of cham- pagne. To the toast “ America,” Louie managed to reply with one “ to the Ger- man people,”’ and was sane enough to re- frain from any hints that he thought he comicloool C©