Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

THE FOURTH CHUM, pearance might have something to do with Pearsley’s diamonds. He still carried them in the old cigarette box, buttoned into his tunic pocket, for he had not found any safer place. If he con- cealed them in his section room, some en- ergetic room orderly might find them. It was curious how he had forgotten them. Pearsley had given them to him and charged him with his dying breath to de- liver them to Vine, who lived at Winches- ter. But what had happened was so out- side all experience, and so heavy had been the weight of indifference on him as he lay in the clink, that he had never looked in- side the battered Capstan box. Pearsley had said that they were dia- monds, and of great value, and that they were to go to the only surviving chum. But it was just possible that this queer, beautiful, littke woman knew of their ex- istence, and knew somehow or other that he had them. He shrugged his shoulders, and for the first time in many months whistled. With- in him there was a deep stirring, a welling up of feelings long suppressed. It seemed as if he might be happy again. When, just before two he was withdrawn from his post, he dropped into the nearest section room and gave his shoes and but- tons an extra rub. His own room lay near the east gate, and there was no reason why he should sacrifice the time it would take to go there, for he had his bandolier and his stick, and Pearsley’s stones were safer where they were than in any place he could find within the garrison. A gunner in the Horse is no mean figure in his ‘ walking out” costume, and as Morgan crossed toward the gate, with his figure made even taller by the heightening effect of strapped-down trousers, the order- ly sergeant, sitting in his little bunk by the gate, said, “’E’ll ’ave a stripe within a month if ’e minds ’imself.” Morgan saw the woman at the fork in the road where a path, scarred and rutted by the passing gun teams, led off to that part of the common used for gun drill. She stood under a tree, leaning against the trunk, and when he was far down the road he could see the two small, white hands 4A A 349 crossed on the breast in that nun-like ges- ture. As he drew near she came slowly forward to meet him. He stopped, saluted, and she came to his side and put one hand on his elbow. “So,” she said. ‘‘ Now we are as a sol- dier and his sweetheart should be, except I shall not walk as close to you as I have seen many doing. ‘“T have heard,” she went on, looking up at him as they drew over to the footpath, ‘that the serving maids pay the soldiers to take them for a walk. I have heard that a sergeant gets, oh, I don’t know how many francs it is! Is that true?” “Yes. Not so much now as it was be- fore the war. Tommy didn’t get as much then, and if he went out with his girl, she usually had to pay the shot.” ‘And how much?” she asked, with a tilt of the hat brim so that he got a flash of the wide, gray eyes, “‘is it that I must pay to have the tallest soldier? And the one who has performe’ so beautifully yester- day? And,” her voice deepened, “ the one who has save’ my life?” Morgari looked down at her with his heart beating high and his throat tight. ‘So it was you,” he said. ‘‘ You were in the lane after all.” “Yes. Why not?” “IT thought you must be a ghost. J was Jeaning forward to switch on the lights when I looked ahead and saw you stand- ing in the middle of the lane. You did not move, and I had to take the wall. But when I went back, you had disappeared, and the adjutant swore there was no one there, and that I was either drunk or mad. He put me in the clink.” “The clink?” ‘Prison. The barracks jail. I was there for a week and would have been longer if they hadn’t needed me to ‘perform.’ I am glad to know some one was there.” Her hand left his arm, and she walked a few slow paces with her head bent. Looking down at her he could see the tiny steel buckled shoes appearing and disap- pearing under the hem of a skirt much longer than he thought the fashion. He saw, too, as she tipped her head forward, econnicloooks.sc©