Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

VINGO'S” LADY SERPENT. stripped to the waist, the moonlight gleam- ing on their sweating backs and shoulders— the pack of them! And they were swaying and lifting their feet and bringing them down with thuds in rhythm, and somewhere off in the darkness under a cabbage palm, some one was clicking a thumbnail against a drum — tum-tum-tum—tum pa-tum-ium ! Not a sound but that and the thud and their hard breathing. Voodoo? Well, I’ve never met a white man who saw real voodoo, so 1 don’t know. I’m only telling you what I saw. And I didn’t see it very damned long. No, sir! There was something in the air, some memory of a memory blacker than the heart of hell. I can’t describe it. I can’t even remember what it seemed like. But I know I started to shiver; and something told me that this was no sight for a white man to look upon near the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century. I went back to my house, with that drum tapping in my ears. I could hear it all next day, faint and far off—tum-tum-tum— tumpa-tum-tum! And I never want to hear it again. Was it Alvina who somehow, with that satanic something in her, caused that black memory to be revived in those poor devils? I can’t honestly say yes. But I won’t say no. I only know that after she came all sorts of things happened; that Vingo turned from a paradise to a hell just as quickly and easily as if a page in a book had been turned. All I can tell you is the things I saw and heard. Well, anyhow, there was this endless run of trouble in the quarters which didn’t take any imagination to grasp, and there were other things. There was old man Clayburn and his shiny blue second-hand roadster and his fancy new clothes. And at the same time there were the twins, who fought and fought and fought all of one night! Things weren’t happening; they were tumbling one on top of the other! V. It was one of those rare Florida after- noons in August. A cupful of fleecy clouds had scampered across the sky a little be- 367 fore noon, and there had been just enough of a shower to cool the air and settle the dust. It was a peaceful, goiden afternoon. TIwenty-Nine had dropped the Northern mail and gone on. I had distributed the letters and waited on a few customers. The commissary was empty and I was sitting on the steps smoking my corncob when I heard the hum of an automobile coming up the sand road from the Dixie Highway, three miles east. Presently, a sky-blue roadster with red trimming came around the bend; and } supposed that another tourist had got off the main road and wanted to know if this was the way to Kissimmee! They often did, and how they cussed Vingo when they heard they had to drive all the way back through that sand! But it wasn’t a tourist or a salesman; it was old man Clayburn, although I didn’t guess it for the first five minutes. The sky-blue roadster pulled up beside the commissary porch and a snappily dressed old gentleman got out wearing a wide and toothless grin. The only familiar note was the watery blue eyes and the leathery red face. The rest was all new. He had had his hair cut and his beard shaved off. He wore a stiff white collar and a pink shirt, and his necktie was yellow, red and black. His suit made my eyes swim. It was black-and-white checks— very small checks, but checks. And he had on a pair of low patent leather shoes! I didn’t associate this flashy old creature with the slovenly old gentleman I had known for going on four years. Not until he spoke did the truth dawn, and then it was only the greatest presence of mind that saved me from swallowing my pipe. ‘ Hello, Buck!” he snickered. ‘“ How do yo’ like mah get-up?” And he twirled around, giving me an eyeful of the rear view. Well, sir, the back of that coat was just covered with belts and straps in that vital black-and- white pattern. | “For Pete’s sake,” I coughed up finally, — ““ what’s the idea?” He pulled out a silver-plated cigarette case, opened it and lit a straw-tipped cigar- ette. By this time I was beginning to feel oO Eomicbooks: co