Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

750. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. They found room in the last boat. The humming had become a roaring now, a mighty volume of sound that poured in from every point of the compass. ‘The blackness was abysmal. The captain leaped down. “ Make off,” he shouted. ‘‘ We’ve got to run for it. My God, a woman!” as he caught sight of the lady from Macassar. As the boat leaped forward under the stroke of the oars a slim figure vaulted the rail and cleaved the seas behind them. The next moment a head rose alongside the boat. The skipper grasped the shock of hair and pulled the swimmer in. “You!” he bellowed as he recognized Teema. ‘‘I thought I was the last man to leave the ship.” ‘““T could not find Mynheer Puddlewhit,” Teema replied in a low whisper. The skipper stared at him incredulously for a moment. Then he impulsively wrung Teema’s hand. “By Heaven, you’re a man!” he exclaimed. A precipitous white surf wall suddenly rose on both sides of the packet, higher than its decks. It bore the doomed craft irresistibly toward them. For a moment it seemed that they must be crushed by the huge bulk of the ship, then it passed a scant rod to the right. At the same instant the surf struck them, flinging them skyward, holding them suspended for an, instant on its crest in a smother of spray, then whirling them forward at an incredible speed. It was a miracle that they were not swamped. Oars were of no use; they were a plaything of the elements and the sea. Whirling, spinning in a vortex of waters, they were hurled toward the mangrove lined shore. Teema, staring ahead, suddenly bent down and tore an oar from one of the sailor’s hands. He pulled desperately, bending the stout ash like a bow. The boat moved ahead a trifle. The next in- stant they leaped through an opening be- tween the trees and shot along a narrow channel. “ By the grace of God, we’ve made it!” the skipper exclaimed reverently as the mighty wave gradually exhausted itself be- tween the narrow banks. Behind them they heard the hurricane howl and batter the coast with seas mountain high. The wind, rushing up the creek funnel, shrieked in their ears and lashed them with spray. But the mangrove wall was too deeply rooted to be laid low by even the violence of the tempest. They rowed swiftly on, Teema guiding them. By and by lights appeared. They were torches, carried by Battahs, lining the village water front. A shout of acclaim rose from the hillmen as they heard Teema’s whistle. Willing hands pulled their craft high inshore and helped them alight. Further sleep that night was, of course, impossible. The rain came five minutes after they landed, great sheets of it, heavy as surf, and no less violent. It poured off the high pitched attap roofs of the vil- lage in a miniature Niagara, sluicing the soft mud on which the huts rested, into the swollen river. The lady from Macassar and Puddlewhit took refuge with their erst- while shipmates in the long community house. There was an open fire on the baked clay hearth at the center of the dwell- ing. The whites circled the blaze, with the Chinese in the second row, and the Malaysians beyond. The Battahs stood, or squatted, along the walls, watching their guests. There was a sinister quality in their watchfulness, thought Puddlewhit, as he looked around for Teema Doud and failed to find him. No one spoke or moved. In fact, con- versation was impossible, so deafening was the continuous roll of thunder and the wash of waters. The fire burned petulantly and without life, filling the house with smoke. Through the gray haze Puddlewhit dis- cerned from time to time, as the lightning flashed vividly through the chinks between the bamboo, the vicious, leering faces of the monkey men of the hills, Teema’s sub- jects. They were well armed, he saw, every man had his spear and a kris or padang. Others were uneasy, too, he noticed. Here and there, among his shipmates, were men gray with fear, and others that kept their hands within their blouses where, no doubt, a knife lay hidden. On the outer periphery of the circle there was an uneasy milling to oO =cOmicoooks.co