Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

CLAIMED. impress its tones on his memory. He dropped one hand, but slid the other down to the fellow’s upper arm where he held him firmly. “You, Blair!” he choked. “In some cursed way or other you are behind all that’s happened! What are you doing here? Why did the Nagaina’s boat take those two and leave me? Answer, or—or, by heaven. T’ll strangle an answer out of you!” In the dark his free hand found the other’s throat and closed on it convincingly. The man struggled, but with so feeble a re- sistance that even in his overwrought state Vanaman was suddenly ashamed, and his grasp relaxed. At the same instant, the put-put of a rapidly nearing motor throbbed through the fog. Mingled with it came the sound of an aggrieved and mournful voice. ‘‘ Shut her off, Mr. Crosby. The bloom- in’ whari’s dead ahead. And now I sup- pose we can wait an hour or so till our mil- lionaire charterer shows up. I know ’em! Always an hour or so behind time. But maybe it will please him that I came after him myself and then had to wait an hour. Hell!” An intolerable suspicion stirred in Vana- man. As the shape of a small launch ‘ma- terialized through the fog, red and green lamps a-glitter, he greeted it in hoarse ques- tion. “From the Nagaina?’”’ ‘““My boat,” resignedly acquiesced the voice. ‘Are you Mr. Robinson? Or is there a Mr. Robinson waiting up on the wharf? Because if there is, tell him his dunnage is all aboard, and Captain Porter has come ashore in person to do the proper honors and fandangoes expected of a yacht captain. And that ought to please him,” he added sotto voce to his second, who was already scrambling out on the platform, lantern in hand. But on Vanaman, the icy fingers of dis- may had closed more tightly. “For God’s sake, get back there!” He fairly thrust the Nagaina’s aston- ished second officer back into the launch and himself followed, dragging Blair along. ‘Mr. Robinson and his niece have been stolen—kidnaped!”’ he announced between 559 his teeth. ‘Another boat was here—an- other man who called himself Captain Por- ter. I was purposely left behind, and those two taken. Get out on the river—quickly! Somewhere out there is either a small boat or a ship that means to go down-river with the tide!”’ CHAPTER XI. JAMES BLAIR, A.B. APTAIN “TOM” PORTER, well known and liked among the blunt, out- spoken fraternity of his, own kind, had found cause for melancholy in the sudden change of charterers which made the sturdy old Nagaina a pleasure craft and demanded of himself the graces and, as he chose to take it, servility of a yacht-captain. Dis- covering, however, that scoundrels unknown had illicitly borrowed his identity and that of his ship and thereby wrested his despised charterer from him, Captain Porter’s view- point toward the latter abruptly changed. Had there been stolen from him some prized and long-treasured possession, the captain could have been no more personally out- raged and indignant. Jesse J. Robinson was his—his charterer! And the captain’s ideas of property rights seemed well on a par with Robinson’s own. Mr. Crosby. suggested that before at- tempting to quarter the river on their own account, the harbor police be notified. The captain swore and ordered him to put back for the Nagaina instanter. “We can wireless the police, and wireless every ship and station down the river. No- body but a-criminal or a fool will be moving in this weather. It’s safe to demand that any craft that is moving be held up. We don’t know exactly what her bloomin’ type is, but she wears sails and she’s a medium big one, by the cut of her bow and fore-. rigging.” “‘What’s that?” cut in Vanaman. ‘What do you know of her rigging? I saw nothing but the small boat.” ‘And we saw that and more, too,” was Porter’s unexpected retort. ‘‘ Matter-of- fact, we passed your bloomin’ kidnapers just at the identical moment when they were nn (Cl Q) NOOK