Adventure Magazine Cover — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

Yellow Treasure And if I’m anything of a marine inspector, of rotten wood.” . I felt him rise from my side, and heard him walk unevenly across the floor. A mo- ment later, I heard the thud of his boot-toe against wood whose squashy sound of splin- tering gave evidence of its condition. mas) BUT above the sound of the rane splintering arose another sound srk which, tearing through the dark- ness, seemed to stop my heart. From the other side of the wooden partition came the sound of a girl’s frightened scream, suddenly stifled. We-listened for an instant, but heard nothiny more. across to where Burns was standing. ‘“‘What was it?” I asked in a whisper, gripping his arm. “There’s a woman in the cell next to this,” he whispered back. We stood there with our hearts thumping, straining our ears to catch any sound of movement; but none came. ‘“‘Who’s there?” called Burns softly. There was no answer. “We won’t hurt you,” he added, still in the same reassuring tone. Tome he added, in what he fondly imagined to be an under- tone, but which reverberated in the confined space, ‘Oh for a Prisoners’ Trades Union! She thinks we want to murder her!”’ In the silence that followed, it seemed to me I could hear the sighing sound of the girl’s breathing through a throat constricted with fear. The thought of any woman in the filthy darkness of this den sickened me. “How big’s that opening you kicked?” I asked him. I felt him bend to investigate. “About a foot square,’ he whispered back, “‘but I can kick it larger. The wood’s like punk.” ‘“‘And scare her to death?” I asked. ‘“‘Not much. Stand from under. Im going through. Gimme the matches.”’ It was a tight squeeze, but I’m built more for speed than for comfort, and I got through. And no sooner had I freed thy legs from the clutch of the rotten wood and squatted on my haunches preparatory to striking the light, than I became conscious of a human presence near me in the dark— close up, almost touching me. Putting out my hand, I touched a bare arm, soft, smooth and rounded. It was trembling violently when my fingers fell upon it; and then, strangely enough, it ceased to tremble at all. I rose and stumbled - 17 “All right,’ I said, soothingly, “all right.” I have heard a good deal about this busi- ness of love at first sight; but I claim to be unique, in my Own experience anyhow, as the only man to fall in love by the simple sense of touch. Naturally it isn’t a mat- ter one discusses with the majority of one’s acquaintance; and—except when, as now, operating under a pen-name—TI shrink from exposing the subject even to the concealed incredulity of my intimates. But the fact is, that that one touch of my fingers on the arm of. this fellow-prisoner in the dark thrilled me more than the most melting mood Alison had permitted herself in the presence of penniless me. ‘“‘Are you all right?” said Burns through the opening, alarmed, possibly, by my ten- second silence and my failure to strike the match. As he spoke, my fingers slipped down, over a tangle of bracelets worn Chinese- fashion, to a tiny soft hand that closed with a terrified tightness over them. “Quite all right,” I said, opening the match-box, and propping it against my foct so that I could strike the match with my one free hand. And then to the girl, “You speakee English?”’ “Yes,” said a small voice. And I was surprized to notice that, though the word had a foreign accent, it was not thick. and long-drawn out in the pidgin-tongue used by ninety per cent. of Chinese who speak English at all. ‘“‘Then don’t be afraid,” I said, dropping the pidgin myself. “I’m going to strike a match. Are you ready?” The soft fingers trembled in my own, and the light sputtered up. And that was my first sight of May-sing, between whose hand and mine there had already flowed that strange electricity that most of u8 ex- perience at one time or another, and which none of us, tomes and libraries to the con- trary notwithstanding, understand in the shghtest degree. I must have looked a horrible figure to her—hair matted, face stained with blood and the rank fungi of the dungeon floor; uniform torn to shreds and daubed with mud and slime; yet she looked at me with- out shrinking. As for me, I sat there till the match burned my fingers, entranced. She was small—so small as to make little more than a heap of bright-colored silks COMmicaoo® <S) (© inn