Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRANGER AT THE GATE. holding the boat seemed to be blowing right out of the water. But it wasn’t in rope to hold up against that devil of a wind for any stretch of time. Suddenly there was a double jerk, both anchor lines parted and then we seemed to lunge back through empty space. “The dive through air lasted only a sec- ond or two—but every second had a solid hour in it. For instance, it seemed that I clung in my place for a full five minutes watching Lajpat Rani hanging onto the rail, his body blown out into the storm, until the rail sagged and broke in a section. Then another section went, and finally Lajpat, terrible face and all, whipped off into the sea. ‘“‘He had been only a few feet from me. I could see his screaming for help, begging me to give him a hand. I could see his throat swell as he shrieked. I suppose he was offering me his half of the pearl, offer- ing to be my slave during his life, if I would save him. But I couldn’t raise a hand. The wind would have got under me and knocked me into the sea after him. ‘“‘ Well, that was the end of Lajpat Rani. “A minute later the little boat stood back on its stern with a lurch like a trained elephant. It shook all over, then spun and went down. “TI had seen what was coming. I had jammed the Sheik into a vest pocket where it couldn’t possibly get out. Then I took a breath that filled up every nook and cranny in my lungs and when I hit the water it was in a perfect dive. At that, I was traveling so fast that the blow half stunned me. I had been flipped off the end of that boat like a stone out of a sling, literally. ‘The force of it kept me under water until my lungs nearly burst. When I fought my way back to the surface, I expected a blast that would knock me back under and stifle me instantly. But there was not half the force I had expected in the wind, though there was enough to make the rope which was trailing the Elise whip out as though an invisible dog were pulling at the end of it. I managed to get that rope and they dragged me onto the commodore’s yacht. 879 ‘How I managed to stick to that rope while they pulled me in is a mystery. I was smashed and battered and bumped. The wind got under me and buoyed me like a feather. Then it struck down from the top and knocked me into the water. ‘“ But I got the rope tangled around my legs, twisted around my body, and so, when they pulled the rope in, I was there, un- conscious, but alive. ‘““T came to in the cabin of the commo- dore himself. “I found him sitting at my side jug- gling the pearl in his hands, the old rascal, and smiling down at me. “*T see,’ said he, ‘that you have had good fishing. The clubs will be having less fear of you at the card tables during the next winter, I take it, Logan.’ “I was too glad to be alive to think much of what he said. I reached for the brandy bottle which was standing on the table beside the bunk. Standing, mind you, and not fastened. Because that black gale was the last effort of the storm. It passed in a few seconds—I mean the sledge- hammer, tornado part of it—passed in a few seconds. After that it was an ordinary hurricane for a breath longer, and then it fell away quickly to a dead calm with the sun out washing the last ofsthe clouds out of a blue sky. ‘“‘ At any rate, I took the brandy bottle, poured myself a stiff shot of the stuff, and then let it burn home on the inwards of me. ““* Commodore Dascom,’ I said to* him. ‘T owe my life to you.’ ““* Youre wrong,’ he answered. ‘ You owe your life to the wind that blew that rope overboard.’ “* Put it that way, if you please,’ said J, ‘I have a sense of gratitude. I hope to make you aware of it, one of these days, commodore.’ ” “He merely grinned at me and kept on playing with the pear!. He wanted to learn about it, and I told him the whole story over some more brandy and soda. “<< And it seems to me,’ said he, when I finished, ‘that you’re the last man alive who’s ever had anything to do with the Sheik, as you call it.’ “<T am,’ said I. ‘I’m the only person COMmicloooks.e© in