Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

THE LADY FROM ‘““And be a dunghill for their taunts?” Teema flared. ‘ No, a thousand times no! Burn, kill, destroy till they dare not breathe the name of Teema Doud, even in whispers. Oh, if I had fifty of my Battahs here, how the laughter of these dogs would rattle in their slit throats.” “You are not yourself, Teema,’’ Pud- dlewhit returned gently, rising. “I shall speak with you to-morrow again.” Il. PUDDLEWHIT awoke an hour or two after midnight with the nightmare sensation of slipping off the edge of a precipice into an abyss. A brief examination revealed that the horizontal plane of his bunk had been rudely disturbed. He heard the engines chugging hysterically below, but missed the concomitant sense of motion. ‘“ A. Puddlewhit,” he observed, ‘‘ this damned tub must be astraddle a mudbank.” He dressed, and yawning sleepily, am- bled to Teema’s stateroom. ‘That was not surprising, considering the circumstances, but what was mystifying was the fact that the bed had not been disturbed. Apparent- ly Teema had been on deck all night. Too sleepy to ponder on the mystery, he went in search of him. The night was warm as milk from a cow. Big stars gleamed luminous from a low- hanging heaven, pouring their soft radiance on a phosphorescent sea. The shore line was a vague silhouette of mangrove tops, pillowed on sable gloom. It was impossible to tell where sea ended and shore began. The packet might have been a mile from the rough-edged horizon or a hundred yards; all sense of distance lost itself in the brooding darkness. The yellow sea undu- lated in rhythmical swells. There was no alarm yet, only discom- fort. The packet’s nose had run high on the bank, leaving her deck tilted at a con- siderable angle. Puddlewhit sought the captain. He was a puffy fellow, short- statured and onion-bellied. The tropic sun had found a peculiar pleasure in parboiling both his complexion and disposition a hec- tic red. Puddlewhit found him character- istically profane and out of breath. MACASSAR, TAT ‘* Judas Iscariot!’ he bellowed at an un- fortunate member of the watch. ‘ Don’t tell me there was no surf to mark the bank. A sailor could feel mud. He could smell mud. He wouldn’t need no verdampte surf. You were asleep, or drunk, or God knows what. Get out of here.” He discovered Puddlewhit at his elbow. *“ Ach, Mynheer Puddlewhit!” he ex- claimed apologetically. ‘ A thousand par- dons, mynheer. But, you see, I leave the deck to catch a few hours’ sleep. Then what happens? These oxen, these buffa- loes, these thrice-damned domkoppen, run my ship aground. By the great king Ne- buchadnezzar, they couldn’t see the whole verdampie island of Sumatra when it was stuck up in front of them. Now we are high and dry till the next tide. And the devil knows whether we will get off then. Such sailors they breed nowadays. Shades of Piet Heyn and the Silver Fleet, what has Holland come to?” ‘“‘ There’s no danger?” Puddlewhit asked. ““Not unless it should blow. The ba- rometer is a bit low. Oh—” He cast an anxious eye shoreward. “If there are Bat- tahs over there’’—he nodded toward the mangroves—‘ Heaven help us!” ‘Would they attack a ship as large as this?” Puddlewhit inquired calmly. “They attacked and took walled Keu- mala,” the captain returned grimly. “I think those devils would dare anything. The worst of it is, we haven’t above a cou- ple of dozen rifles to defend ourselves with.” ‘* What are the prospects for being sight- ed by another ship?” Puddlewhit continued evenly. “Very slim. We are east and north of the regular lanes of traffic. There is prob- ably no more deserted strip on the whole north coast,” the skipper acknowledged pessimistically. ‘Ah! That is why you have not used rockets?” “ Precies, mynheer! Tt would only give notice to every murdering brownskin for twenty miles around that we are in distress. Ha! What is that?” he exclaimed. He clutched Puddlewhit’s arm and point- ed into the darkness. Puddlewhit saw oO CoOmicooolks (S@)