Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

DIRTY WEATHER. Below, in the mate’s cabin, Captain Hen- driks, Honk Wing, the steward, and Sparks, having done all they could to make Rut- ledge comfortable, stood in silence regard- ing the results of their work. The mists, swirling diffidently about the cabin, hazed them into a group suggestive of the three witches in ‘“ Macbeth,” with Rutledge for a caldron. The captain, tall, gaunt, exhaling an air of tremendous brooding, stood rigidly in the center. Hong Wing, a Chinaman of an age anywhere between the forties and a hundred, his face smoothed to the rigidity of a mask, stood, eyes veiled, and stared with a sleepy intensity at Rutledge. Sparks, a leggy, sunny-haired youngster, clenched his fists until his knuckles dotted in white the brown skin. “Tl. punch the livin’ daylights out of him when I get him. I will, you know!” Sparks ended the threat with a gulp. All that he asked for on earth, at that mo- ment, was the exquisite privilege of putting the print of his ten fingers onto the neck and windpipe of the wretch who had been responsible for this bit of villainy to his friend. ‘For Rutledge and he were friends, side- kicks, in that complete fashion that makes for a friendship at sea where the confined nature of existence, especially on long pas- sages, is conducive to a distortion, an in- tensifying of the emotions; where men are attracted to one another and held by un- usual bonds, pairing off in the flush of the setting sun after supper is over to quiet parts of. the deck and spinning yarns of loves and of hopes that are gone, conjectur- ing about the folks at home, unfolding ten- tative intimacies beneath the calmer magic of the wakening stars; where men are re- pelled from one another by animosities that are born of trifies, brooding during the endless hours, when one is left to thinking, into sullen hates, plans of revenge, violence, even death. Hendriks vaguely commended this desire on the part of Sparks with a grunt. Hong Wing, elevating his shoulders and his eyes an infinitesimal distance, inferred thereby that all happenings on earth, whether occurring on land or at sea, 165 whether to first officers of eleven thousand- ton ships or to mere mortals, were immut- ably and incomprehensibly in the hands of the gods. “He was struck from behind. Probably never knew what hit him. It may have been an accident.” There was not the slightest ring of conviction in this after- thought of Hendriks. “1 wish I’d been with him.” The trace of a smile flickered across Hen- driks’s face as he compared the slender figure of the boy beside him with the pres- ent-day replica of some ancient Viking stretched at length upon the bunk. The silence grew oppressive. Hong Wing alone seemed at peace, to be curiously in accord with it. “It’s not as though he were a tyrant with the men.’”’ Hendriks referred to Rut- ledge. “It’s not the outcome of a grudge on the part of one of them. No, it’s some- thing deeper, more subtle than that; some- thing that we do not understand, steward.” ‘* Kes, sair?”’ ‘“‘ Ask Mr. Harris to call all hands for- ‘ward; everyone except the man at the wheel, the lookout, and those who are ac- tually on duty in the engine room.” ‘* ’Ees, sair.” Hendriks sighed heavily. ‘ We will do,” he said, ‘“‘ what we can. Later, when Mr. Rutledge comes around—you will stay with him, Sparks?” “Oh, yes, sir.” ‘Let me know if there is any change.” Hendriks paused and sunk his eyes, for a moment, in Sparks. ‘ Don’t worry, young- ster. He’ll pull through all right. Got as many lives as a cat. Come, steward.” Sparks was alone with Rutledge. A quarter of an hour passed. By degrees a normal, healthy color had been returning beneath the ruddy bronze of Rutledge’s cheeks. His eyelids moved uncertainly—opened. “Hi, there, Rutledge! Peter! You hear me?” Rutledge stared at the bellower for an appraising moment. “What the hell do you think I do? You’ve got your mouth within six inches of my ear.” comiclbooolx C©