Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

278 that had almost touched our side, had be- held the opening of the attack, and never realized, never dreamed that it could be! Like a bound bundle of rags I lay on my own bridge—the bumping of a veri- table armada of junks upon our iron sides, the tall forest of their awkward swaying masts above the bulwarks, the feet of their multitude crews dully pounding on our decks—every one of us, I had no doubt or hope, to have a knife in his throat be- fore the clock ticked thirty seconds more. I gave a deep-throated curse. It was answered by a voice I vaguely rec- ognized. I wondered which of the look- outs had been spared thus far with me. And why? Then I caught the words: “Be silent, my friend. But a minute more and this will all be done.” I strove to turn my head to see the speaker. JI cursed whoever it might be. There came no reply. My body prickled again. Done! Yes, well enough done! And we done, finished, dead, with it! Another mystery of the China coast. I growled another curse. My friends even now were sweltering their warm blood be- low. Our men—good God—caught in their sleep! And we had trusted—trusted—the thought jerked to me. Something—something we had done had cut beneath the placid currents of Chinese life. Something. What? Then, filling me with even greater horror, came a long-drawn, piercing scream.\ Following this a native leaped up the ladder to the bridge. He kowtowed obse- quiously to whoever was behind me, and in a low voice spoke a few quick words in the tongue of his people. He was answered by a swift sentence, and left, shouting as he jumped from the ladder. A tramping of bare feet pounded in my ear, and I sensed that a great weight had lifted from our decks. I strained to twist my head higher, and gasped—for the for- est of masts was swaying, and bobbing, and slipping by. And then came a series of bumps against our side, some long, thinly rasping, scraping sounds, @ more and more> distant murmur of lapping oars and whisper- ing rigging. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. As from a dream, the massed fleets of the Yangste Horde had slid phantomlike into the oblivion of night. Then a tall man stepped from behind my head, stooped, and severed my bonds with a quick, sure hand. I struggled to my feet. The man was masked. Quickly I leaped for the long- glass which yet lay where it had fallen upon the cocoa matting. This command came English. I whirled about, half crouched, the weap- on I would use not a finger length away. Then slowly I stiffened erect, and folded my arms, awaiting the death I felt sure would come, even as it must have to my comrade below. For the man gripped a wide-mouthed automatic close to his side, and one hand was slowly reaching for the corner of his mask. He would show me his face, I thought, and then—fire would leap from the gun, and I would know no more. In fascination I stared at the hand that slowly raised. How long and slimly delicate it was! I—TI had seen such a hand—had grasped such a— Those hidden eyes—the power—the power that reached out—made itself felt— And then the man spoke again. And this time I knew whose voice it was. ‘“* Were it not known that this ship itself were not at fault, my friend, the river god would be feasting on it and every man of its crew even now. For that much may you thank the gods. of wisdom and of fore- sight and of chance. The thing is done; our mission accomplished. And you and I, my friend, have met before. Look—then seal your lips.” With a lightning movement he lifted the mask; then turned quickly—and vanished from my’ sight. in clear - cut We sailed safely in the morning for Vlad- ivostok, not a white man of us harmed, nor his goods. But the Chinese boy with the brand of the Society of Ancestral Loss upon his breast was gone, and with hir my room boy, Sing. DOOK C©