Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

‘TWENTY-STICK ISLAND. and the leafy vines were odorous. li was cool and the quiet sweetness of the night set its seal on his spirit. Save for riding lights the yacht was dark and its presence no longer bothered him. He yawned and stretched himself, ready for sleep. His senses were keen, like those of all men who live in lonely places. There was a splash in the lagoon, not an unusual night sound, probably the leap of a fish. Instinc- tively he looked toward the water. There was a luminous and moving streak upon it, the flash of something white. His eyes were focused for the dark by his vigil, and he could see a form that was swimming steadily for the shore, the regular lift of an arm from which rolled the lumi- nous drops of sea fire that made up the wake of the swimmer. The whiteness pre- cluded a native, and no native would be swimming in the lagoon at that hour. Also there was a possibility of sharks, for the tide was at flood. It was some one coming ashore from the _ yacht in a strange and risky fashion. His brain became instantly alert. Somehow he cennected the visit with the cry he had heard a little while before. Swiftly he moved inside and caught up an electric torch, hurrying down to the end of the wharf. A landing there was easy at high tide. The swimmer was close in, forging for- “ward with regular strokes. Jimmy slid the switch of his flash and the light rayed out. The beam revealed an oval face topped with hair that gleamed like pale gold, showing the parted lips of a small and red lipped mouth about a resolute chm. Two eyes reflected the glow’ of the torch. A voice called to him, low, compelling. “ Put out the light—please!” Jimmy obeyed reluctantly, his thoughts running wild. <A girl coming ashore! Why had she left the yacht? Obviously because she found it for some reason inhospitable. He crouched at the wharf end, calling back softly. “ All right. wharf.” The luminous ripples marked progress. The starlight revealed her last strokes, an arm reaching out for the stringpiece ‘of the This way. Land on the wharf, a load small and smooth, but firm, that Jimmy clasped. The girl get to her knees. She was in a bathing suit, short skirted. As she stood up she came to Jim- my’s shoulder. “* Will you come on up to the house?” he said, somewhat at a loss for words in the unconventional situation. She seemed to be trying to make him out in the faint light. He was glad that he had stayed up, had put on his white drill, Her sex and her youth appealed to every instinct within him. “All right,” she said, her voice coming quickly after her swim, “ if you won’t show , a light.” “ Not till you get inside,” he answered, “There are shutters.” ‘Tt was plain that she did not want any- thing unusual marked from the yacht. She had eluded the vigilance of the deck watch, likely to be none too lively in locked waters. The islanders of those latitudes were of. Polynesian origin, not dangerous. — ~ “ Path’s “pi go first. “Yes,” the rather faint. Sée all right?” girl answered, her voice Ty. Jimmy THorPE found himself tingling with the sense of adventure. The touch of her hand, the sound of her voice, her straight ahead, ” said Jimmy. aA! 1 pluck in making the swim, the risks she _ might have left behind her on the yacht, — quickened him. She followed him up the stairs, across. = the veranda and into the shack, standing still while he closed his shutters, struck a match, and lit a lamp. He saw her re-— garding him with wide eyes, appraisingly, and knew the eyes were blue and frank, with a touch of anxiety that vanished as she gave a little sigh that sounded like re- lief from apprehension. Jimmy valued that as a satisfactory estimate of his appear- ance. She must have feared what kind of aman she might find. He kept his eyes on her face, fully con- scious of her lithe, curving figure in the wet _ bathing suit, with the water puddling on the floor; anxious to reassure her, though the sisht set his pulses pounding. oO Comichbooks-co