Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

648 Inasmuch as Butch Herzog made use of this room later in the evening for his gam- bling, the windows were closely shuttered and barred with iron grille work. They imprisoned the foul warm air, to which Tom Yarre, fuming angrily with his stubby cheroot, added his customary aura of smoke. Butch Herzog fled to the sanctuary of the kitchen, bewailing the fact that he could not get rid of these strange guests. “There will be a murder in this house,” he cried desperately. ‘“‘ There is no doubt of it. It’s in the air. I smell it, I feel it! It hangs over us like a black cloud!”’ Indeed the black cloud of smoke from the Orinoco’s stack hovered ominously over the lodging house, and the proprietor felt himself in the clutches of the great freighter, as if it had been some iron monster crouched at his very door. ‘Be careful how you treat them,” Her- zog advised the girl who served the guests of the Sundown Café. ‘“ These men are strange men. They have sailed from what ports no one knows. Their ship is a strange and villainous looking ship. She has seen storms—perhaps fights. “One of the sailors is marked with scars that curdle my blood. And the skipper is a terrifying man to behold; he has red eyes and broken teeth and fists that are always doubled. Be careful, Juana, when you approach him, that you don’t offend him, for like as not he will order his men to tear this house down about my ears.” “Let him put his fists upon me, Juana, the daughter of Miguel!” the girl said. “‘ Pirates—eh? Pouf! I should like to see Sefior Pirate touch my hand!” Herzog shook his head in despair, but then, thinking over the situation, he felt that perhaps it was just as well Juana ob- jected to the guests striking up an ac- quaintance with her. The proprietor had found out in days past that ladies who de- sired to attract the attention of the guests of the Sundown Café were often the cause of very disagreeable brawls. “Very well, Juana,” he said, “ be your- self. But for God’s sake do not offend that skipper: We must treat them as gentle- men and make them welcome. Then they will go away, perhaps, without slicing the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, gizzards out of us all—you, myself, the cook, my wife.” Juana seemed to regard her entrance into what had been described as a den of pi- rates as nothing to get excited about. She shuffled in, her ragged shoes scuffling up the sawdust of the floor, her big black eyes glowering sulkily at first one guest, then the other, and finally at the man sitting alone. To her they might have been three hogs waiting for food. The skipper and Mr. Grimpen, although both quite impressionable when coming ashore after a voyage and finding them- selves in the presence of women, were very discriminating in their choice. Juana was a servant girl, and hence belonged to the lower stratum—the stratum on shore which corresponded to the forecastle on board ship. | The middle-aged Captain Jarvy was very discerning, particularly when it came to clothes. He gave the kitchen wench a rap- id, disgusted look from her tousled black hair down to her cotton stockings and rag- ged shoes. That was enough. “Bring me an enchilada!” he snapped, and turned to the mate to resume his con- versation. Mr. Grimpen, mate of the Orinoco, was perhaps something more of a ladies’ man. But he, too, desired certain fundamental requisites. The girl must have red lips, brilliantly rouged cheeks, white arms and shoulders—not that disreputable copper color so common in the ports where the Orinoco had touched for many months past —that copper color which was the best word to describe Juana’s complexion. She appeared to be not only a wench, but a greaser as well. “ Chile and beans will start me orf, me gel,”” was his comment. | ' The girl—perhaps naturally—interested in a very vital way Tom Yarre, who was only a boatswain. His order was a tamale, and when she brought it to him he watched the slender olive-colored hand take a knife and cut the strings about the husks. There was a deft grace in the way Juana handled a knife. When the boatswain saw the hand it appealed to him in a curious way. The strings of those tamale husks might have ° COMMICLOoOoks (C@