Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

GOLD, hand, and shone upward into his lean face, etching every wrinkle. The old man on the deck was puffing heavily, regaining his breath, lumber- ing up to his knees. For a moment he stayed there on his creaky knees, look- ing up at the illumined face, which was like a detached yellow skull hanging from the deck beams above. Two slender wreaths of smoke issued from Swepe’s pinched nostrils. “I reckon you aim to tell me when you get ready,” he laughed. “ Well, you're ready now. No more callin’ names. No more throwin’ fits. Won't do you any good. It might rile me. I’m calm and quiet now, old Bible-thumper. But I may change.” The aged Bartlett struggled to his feet. He had to grasp a stanchion to help himself, and then he clung to it, like a drunkard to a lamp post. In what hideous corner of hell had he awakened? Before what infernal judg- ment seat was he standing? What fiend from the nether depths sitting there with smoking nostrils was going to pronounce sentence-~upon his lost soul ? “The gold is on this ship. She brought it aboard every night. That much we know,” Swope said. “ Maybe you'll just as lef we search the tub from stem to stern? There’s four of us, but it ‘ll take a long time. Mean- while you'll be writhin’.” “ Writhin’?’’ the dazed old man re- peated. “For puttin’ us to that much trou- ble, it’s only fair we put you to some trouble. ‘There’s some wood coals in the galley.” Still the old skipper did not an- swer. The mate’s brows furrowed, and his lids lowered over the fishy eyes, leav- ing two thin sickly slits of light. What was the matter with the old skipper anyway? Couldn't he see that he was done for if he tried to cross his captors? Why did he not answer? W = the sum so great that he was go- A 97 ing to fight for it to the last ditch— even to the point of torture? But Swope did not excite himself. He did not attempt to get the secret out of his prisoner by storming about and bullyragging and working himself into a frenzy. He preserved a ven- omous equanimity. The sea-cook and the lanky Tom Brass were returning from the hatch- way. “Tl ask you once more—the last time: Where’d you stow that gold?” The old skipper shook his head dumbly. He was distracted, frantically trying to fathom what this talk of gold was all about. Was there by some grim grip of destiny a gold hoard on his stricken ship after all? If not, why had Swope come back ? What had Swope heard during that week? He must have heard that there was something very enticing on board the old whale ship—something more enticing than the gold fields beyond Sacramento, : Had old Joshua and his daughter been holding back something? His mind, groping in this fog, kept stum- bling on that baffling revelation of old Joshua: his daughter was ashore! “You won't answer?” Swope was saying calmly. “All right, Slushy, you go for’rd to your galley and get a scuttle of live coals. We'll make this tidewater crimp tell what he knows. It won't take long.” The giant negro pranced off, with a graceful gesture of his baboon arms, his head lolling rhythmically to his shuffling step. The skipper heard him snapping his fingers as he disappeared in the darkness, the sound syncopating with his shuffling feet. The African was actually cake-walking! For an eternity, Skipper Bartlett looked helplessly, like one stricken in his mind, at the smoke oozing from Swope’s pinched nostrils and buck teeth. ‘Torture was coming—unless he gave up some secret about gold—gold that he did not know existed! Gomichbooks EO