Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

386 her course and search along shore for some - signs of shipwreck. In any event they must have sighted the Dora, now breaking to pieces on the reef; and come to take us on board. A blocky second officer with a weather- beaten face and pig’s eyes were in charge of the two boats. JI noticed when he stepped ashore how those small eyes of his went straight to the heap of leaden boxes, and although he never said a word about them, it was quite plain that the sight of them had set him to thinking hard. A cer- tain stiffness in his manner also struck me as unpleasant. But these impressions were blotted out by the stirring incidents of our departure. All of us talked back and forth like old and tried companions; there was a pleasant- ness in this new intimacy which warmed one’s heart. Even Langton and Captain Wilson interchanged something like good- natured congratulations. And Dorothy Langton, who had taken her father to one side promptly on our ar- rival from the hill, to tell him of my plan of being set ashore at Ensanada, seemed to have forgotten enough of her dislike of the skipper to part with some of her iciness toward him. But when we came on board the steamer— or soon afterward, at any rate—the old conditions returned. There were, of course, the inevitable questions to be asked and answered. — Cap- tain Wilson faced the liner’s skipper in the latter’s stateroom and told his story; and when he came out he almost ran against me, talking with Dorothy Langton. His eyes rested on us for a moment with something like disfavor, and then traveled to her fa- ther, who was seated in a steamer-chair near by. 3 Soon afterward the girl and her father had an interview with the captain. When they left his stateroom Dorothy rejoined me. | “He says,’ she told me quietly, and I could see the worry in her eyes, “‘ that the steamer is going to Ensanada; but there is something about him—I do not know what it is—something in his way of talking— that makes me afraid.” It was a warming interlude. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. I tried to reassure her, but for the life of me I could put no ring of conviction in my voice. Something was coming, some- thing unpleasant. I was morally certain of it. The manner in which that second officer had looked at the leaden boxes and then at us; the manner of Captain Wilson; and, later on, the manner of the ship’s cap- tain when he had me in for a talk—all were disquieting. Some one had cards up his sleeve, As for my story—I kept strictly to the facts. And as I recited the tale I realized how it must sound; there was only one construction to be placed on Langton’s con- duct and the presence of those boxes. still, Ensanada was in.Mexican territory, and there was no formal charge against either of the Dora’s passengers. I could not see what the skipper could do, save to allow the two to go ashore if they so chose. It was his business: to report the entire matter when he came to San Francisco, and that was all there was to it. Evening had come when something hap- pened which aroused all my apprehensions anew. It began with the steamer changing her course abruptly. And it terminated with several loud blasts of the whistle. As soon as | could do so without display of suspicious haste, I excused myself and went out on deck. Sure enough, there lay another vessel’s lights off our port bow. And she was lying to. We had. signaled her. I went to the rail. The rattle of blocks and the whine of tackle followed the stopping of our en- gines. A boat went overside, carrying that same second officer with the pig’s eyes. A quarter of a mile away the lights of the biding steamship cast particolored streaks upon the ocean. While I lingered at the rail I became conscious of some one beside me. Langton was standing close by, gripping the rail with his two waxen hands; beyond him I got sight of the girl. We looked across her father and into each other’s eyes. But neither of us said anything. Both of us were dreading something—and what that thing was we did not know. ‘Which made the dread all the more terrible, which made Gomichbooks (EO) mn /