Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

28 never think of speaking to Miss Flo- ence. To all of which Dunn listened with an even greater amount of surprise and dum- founded unbelief and went away muttering something about: ‘ Cheek! The monu- mental gall—” The rest of the afternoon Dunn and Fitz spent forward, regasketing the air- pump, overhauling the air-lines, rigging the life-lines for the divers, and oiling the bay- onet joints. One device which interested Dunn was an automatic cut-off so arranged that should the air supply of the diver be in- terfered with, say, by an attacking shark, or a broken hose, the automatic cut-off functioned and closed the inlet in the suit to prevent the water from entering, thus allowing the diver a very few minutes to get himself to the surface and into new air. ‘They renewed the straps on the heavy lead-soied shoes and finally tested the entire outfit by a dress rehearsal. Several of the crew were called upon to turn the pump while Dunn helped Fitz into the suit and fastened the helmet in place. Each part functioned beautifully. All except Fitz; he came out of the stifling hot apparatus, swimming in perspiration. Dunn tried the second suit. They attached twenty-five fathoms of three-inch Manila line to each suit, to serve as a life-line in case of trouble, then put the suits away and went aft. The day before their expected arrival at the reef Dunn caught Ah Jung just leaving Florence at the stern. “ Jung,” Dunn hissed in his ears, “ if you don’t stop that lying about me, so help me Hannah, I’ll hamstring you!” “No,” Jung protested. ‘ No lie, Cap’n Bill. Tell ’um alla time plenty tluth. T’ly fo’ fixee ma’llage; tell Missee Flo’ence damn plenty topside skippah. Tell yo’ velly good man.” ‘All the same, Jung, you let me do my own talking. If you don’t ’—Dunn stopped impressively—“ Tl take Joy Ling as my servant.” The threat had the desired effect. More so than Dunn had intended. Ah Jung’s mind refused to encompass such a thing. It ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, was impossible! He went below to think it over. He crouched down against Cap’n Bill’s bunk in a litter of shoes, his mind a chaos. This was the first time Cap’n Bill had ever said anything like that. Jung had always associated Cap’n Bill with him- self. “Maybe,” jJung’s mind whispered— “maybe Joy Ling can whiten shoes better than you. Maybe his fingers are more nimble than yours.” Ah Jung went to his room, just astern of Dunn’s, and he took out his god. An hour went by and still he remained bent before the stone image. He was praying, praying that Cap’n Bill would forget, that Ah Jung’s fingers would regain some of their old time nimbleness. Incense burned slowly, and when he arose it was again to remove Cap’n Bill’s shoes and rewhiten them, in a pitiful attempt to do even better. That night when Dunn, securely en- sconced in the stern, noticed Ah Jung hovering about him, he suddenly realized what he had said, and what it must have meant to Ah, the faithful Celestial. It made him miserable, and he flung his cigar over the rail into the sea. “Jung,” he called softly, ‘“ come here, old timer.” He grasped the hand of the old Chinaman tightly. “ Don’t worry, Jung; I haven’t forgotten. You may tell Joy Ling for me that I think he is a fool— a fool thrice born of a fool! Now, you old fraud, go to bed.” That night incense burned again at the shrine of Ah Jung’s god. TV. It was seven days after the hurried de- parture from Colon that Dunn decided he was approaching the locality of the lost reef. At noon he took his meridian altitude of the sun. The resultant computations gave him his latitude. He advanced his line of position from ten o’clock, and se- cured his local apparent noon latitude and longitude. He had carefully marked the position of the Defender, which he secured from the logbook, then computed the position of the run in miles along his true course, then cir- CoOMmicaooks (S@