Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

~ plainingly, through the grasses, and through the fallen creepers, wine-colored and gold. , There were these, and something else. There was a shadow on the island: the loom of a strange and eerie story but half-told. Rafferty’s Luck had not failed from the usual causes—not altogether, that is. It had gone through the common history of little, remote mines; supposed at first to be very rich in copper, it had turned out to be a mere pocket, with a problematical vein behind it, that might or might not be worth developing when found. 3 It had been worked by the partners—there were three—in turns. The island was far out of the track of ships; it had been visited accidentally, by a ship- wrecked crew. Three of these had found the copper, and kept silence; and later on, two had gone up to work it. | 3s They had worked it, won enough ore for a good show, and waited confi- dently for the returning boat. But—when it came, it found only one man. The other had killed himself. Without any reason, he had cut his throat. The third man took his place, and arranged, as before, that a passing schoon- er should call. It called within a few days, and found one man. The other, without any reason, had leaped over a precipice, and died. | Upon this, the third went away, and stayed so long that the mine— which was on British territory, and under mining-laws—had nearly been forfeited. At the last moment the men now interested in it got me to go and hold the place, while the third partner went to London for capital. They were candid enough—they told me that the island was under a shadow; and when I asked just what they meant, they said: “Exactly that. Rafferty and Wilder” (the two who had died) “both said something about shadows.” , | : “What?” I asked. “Nothing that anybody could understand. Rafferty had cut almost through his windpipe, and Wilder’s face was smashed in by the fall. As like as not,” went on the third partner,—France was his name,—“as like as not, drink had something to do with it; they were neither of them sober men.” “But you are—and you didn’t come to any sort of grief?” “IT am—and I didn't.” “Yet you don’t feel like staying. You only had a few days of it.” “Haven't I told you I must go and scare up some cash? Are you on, or not?” “J am on,” I said. : “Good. A man with an M.C. and a D.C.M. like you—” “Hang the M.C. and the D.C.M. I’m going because I’m broke, and because want to know what it’s like to be really alone As for your shadows, they _ won’t make me jump over cliffs. I take one spot after sundown, never more.” “Good,” said France again. He looked at me as if it was in his mind to say ~ something more, but whatever the thing was, he kept it back... . “About the journey,” he continued. ... | Six weeks later I was left at Cave Island by a whaleboat—the last step in a decline that began with an ocean liner, continued through inter-island 14 _—