Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

CLAIMED. sessed a resolution firm as her uncle’s, though of different quality. “T couldn’t possibly leave him,” she countered. ‘He relies on me in many ways, and needs me now, I think, more than ever. I can’t go, but you can. There is no claim of duty to hold you here, Dr. Vanaman.”’ He turned away, head slightly bowed. Sometimes the best and most innocent of women will administer a stabbing hurt and remain quite unconscious of it. “IT prefer to stay,” he said in a low voice, and carrying the box to the suite of rooms he shared with his employer, spent the rest of the afternoon alone with it, Robinson returned late, tired out, and in an uncommonly savage humor. His mood found its appropriate victim in the man he held by a tenuous but unbreakable bond; ruthless judge and manager of men that he had always been, the old hawk was sure of Vanaman as of Leilah, and since in his own peculiar way he really loved the latter and cared nothing about the former, the girl was peremptorily dismissed from her uncle’s presence and Vanaman re- ceived full benefit of the evil temper gen- erated by conditions at the engine works. It was an unpleasant martyrdom, and before the evening was over the doctor hated Robinson as he had never known he could hate any human being. Though the day had been fair, night promised another storm. Toward morning the promise was fulfilled with a violence that seemed to shake the very earth; and lying awake, expectant, Vanaman found it hard to quell and banish certain foolish notions. - Yet this night was better in one respect than any he had spent here. Brief snatch- es of sleep visited him, and from each he would start quiveringly alert; but not even once did the menacing hiss of a fantom but terrible approach mingle with the sounds of rain, raving against the win- dows. Indeed, had Vanaman been willing to ac- cept the belief he suspected Robinson of holding, he might have thought that the unhuman Thing which claimed the green ddd box was using its utmost force in other ways, and had none to spare for empty hal- lucinations. As it was, grim pictures flashed before his fancy. While the house shook in the grip of un- seasonable storm, he saw with the mind’s eye an unconquered, ravening blackness, that gleamed translucent green when the lightning’s lance shook above it. Over the globe’s broad curve it roared hungrily, and the crests of its monstrous billows were tossed toward the clouds, like the myriad, wind-torn manes of white horses racing. They flung themselves on the land, and the land vanished beneath their thunderous hoofs. A wailing rose in the night; earth, shook and shuddered; mountains crashed into mighty flares of flame, and by the leaping light of those awful torches he saw the shrieking race of men devoured, swept away, made nothing. He saw earth open yawning mouths that swallowed whole cit- les, gulped and closed again. And where the cities had been—the ten glittering, scar- let cities—there surged and thundered the white-maned hosts of him— Vanaman shook himself awake again and scowled vengefully across the room at a green box clutched tight in two clawlike hands. Better to lie awake than dream dreams like that. Day returned at last, and again the lash of the tempest rested, and from north to south, down the long sweep of the Atlantic coast, men cursed, wept, counted their lost, and wondered. Old Jesse J. Robinson had slept like a child, but the slightly better humor in which he awoke was quickly shattered by the morning’s news. Grim-faced, steely eyes narrowed, he read of the ravages wrought by the sea while he slumbered. Watching him across the breakfast table, Vanaman thought that so might appear the grim old tyrant of a city, reading the despatches that told of some strong ene- my’s gains. Of a beleaguered, beautiful, scarlet city that would not yield— The doctor gave himself a mental shake. For God’s sake, what was coming over him? Continually, like a moving succes- sion of small, bright pictures, the strangest ideas and fancies marched across the dull mM (SO) NOOK