Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

“IT WAS WAR.” I looked about and discerned that Louie was but half-way down the gang-plank, and that Mamie really had fainted. I sprang to his assistance to get her aboard. ‘“‘ Was she going with us?” I gasped. ‘¢ She’ll have to, now,” Louie spoke in a tone bordering on despair. But he left me to get the exhausted girl to a long seat where she could lie down; and turned to help the men who were shoving off the gang-plank. They left it dangling down the side of the pier. The work of bringing the girl back to consciousness kept my mind for a mo- ment off the terrible thunder of battle that would wait but seconds until we were dis- covered. A leap to the low after-deck procured me a bottle of whisky, and I had it to her lips before the engines had backed us off the pier’s end and we were starting with a reckless jerk full speed ahead. The touch of burning liquor on her lips brought her to. With a frightened glance about her, she sat up, still panting weakly. “ Rudy—where’s Rudy?” she gasped. “Why, Mamie—you fainted, and we couldn’t leave you on_the pier, and—” “Oh, that’s all right. I’m going with you. But Rudy—where are we?” “We're only about a hundred yards off the pier as-yet; but it’s almost another hundred while I’m telling it. And—”’ Once more I was interrupted. A shot rang out—a bullet whined above the rig- ging. I ducked involuntarily. “Oh, this is all right,”” Mamie was say- ing cheerfully. ‘The fun hasn’t started et.” But it had by the time she was finished with the words. It seemed suddenly as if the whole harbor had become a crackling rifle-pit. The lights of the pier were turned on full, as when the raider was being loaded at night. By now, however, we had got far enough away so that the arcs hardly helped the heavily clouded moonlight to reveal our white hull. Hoarse shouts blended with the rifle- fire. To this was added the heavier boom 475 of a three-inch gun from one of the little concrete pits in the great coal-pile. That was answered doubly by a pair of its like on the opposite side of the harbor. For an instant the startling terror of the thing had rendered me incapable of Speech. Then the terror seemed to have died out. I couldn’t believe that all this was being aimed at us. I had been trying to ask the girl to let me help her below deck out of danger. Now, though the phosphorescent splashes darted up all around us, I couldn’t see any danger. I felt as if Mamie would laugh at me if I suggested it. Then the twang of a bullet from the rail within six inches of my hand served to put me into something like proper re- lation with the situation. I was no longer scared; I didn’t seem to be afraid save for the girl. “Td better take you below,” I shouted in her ears. The wicked rattle of a machine-gun had joined the song of death. “They may need me on the bridge,”’ she answered. But that she thoroughly understood the nature -of our danger, she showed by climbing down from the settee instead of Standing up. She crawled forward toward the raised section that overlooked the pilot-house, this last being in reality the main saloon. We reached there just in time. A bul- let flattened against the mast just behind this bridge, and still carried strength to knock the captain senseless over his wheel. It happened as we arrived. ‘“‘ He’s headed wrong anyhow,” the girl cried to Louie. ‘‘ There’s rocks over yon- der.” She snatched the wheel and began to help Louie turn it. “Get him waked up again,” she bade me. ‘“ We'll need him, unless one of you can steer by chart and compass.” “We'll need him,” Louie put in. “We've neither chart nor compass left. This will be steering by the stars, and there aren’t any stars to-night.” comicloool C©