Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

100 The psychology of Brass was very ~much like that of the doughboy. In fact, it was basically the psychology of the whole crew of the Cape Cod. The skipper’s daughter was a force that mariners could not cope with. She did not belong on the ship. She had brought ill luck—as most of them firm- ly believed. Starvation, freezing, scurvy and a plentiful lack of whales had been their lot. It was capped with mutiny, which is ranked only second to shipwreck as the ultimate curse of a ship. Brass, who was congenitally a cow- ard, was superstitious. But his super- stition in this case was quite sound. The curse of having a woman on board a ship is only a problematical hoodoo. But that a curse follows men who have done violence to a woman—there is nothing problematical about that on sea or land. Although Swope, properly speaking, was not a part of the crew, and hence was somewhat immune from forecas- tle traditions, he was a cautious indi- vidual. He knew that he was handling a very delicate situation. Brass would not stand by and see the girl handled roughly. Brass was too fearful of consequences. The negro was a second problem. He was an un- trustworthy factor. If he took it into his head to champion the girl—which he might conceivably do—the lid of hell itself would be off. Swope reflected on these matters. And when he helped the girl to her feet he was the essence of chivalry. She turned upon him, her eyes blaz- ing, her face so white that the rouge spots stood out like smears of blood. She stood between Swope and her father like a tigress protecting her young. The mate had never seen this side of Priscilla Bartlett. He had always re- garded her as a little nuisance running about the decks, a child, dressed as the children of that day in quilted pet- ticoat, woolen stockings, sometimes a ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. black bonnet, sometimes a blue ker- chief across her bosom, But here she was blossomed sudden- ly into a ravishing woman. No longer a serene young girl, smiling at every one with a childlike smile, singing dul- cet songs, darning woolen caps for her crew of worshiping heathens. Instead she was a woman with vivid scarlet lips, a woman with a deadly challenge in her eyes, a woman whose body was on fire with hate. For the first time on that voyage the mate of the Cape Cod felt the spell this ethereal being had cast over the forecastle. For the first time Pris- cilla’s sway extended abaft the mast. It left Swope in a delirium of cross purposes, of feverish thrills, of uncer- tainties, dreads, yearnings. Yearnings, I say. ‘He had the im- pulse to take her in his arms and press those vivid lips to his. He could do it. Why not? The skipper was in irons, the girl was weak. The dough- boy was on deck, the sea-cook was still scraping up his spilled coals. But there was the lanky, red-eyed Tom Brass. And there was some sort of taboo, bred in the bones of men since prehistoric ages. That taboo made Swope yearn all the more. A hoard of gold, a beauti- ful girl who had captivated a city, a life of luxury on some rancho in Mex- ico. That was the tangible form as- sumed by that vague surge that was heating Swope’s veins. Swope, the leading mutineer, in love with his skipper’s daughter! ‘That surely would open Pandora’s Box and liberate the forces of hell! Lifting himself as best he could from the maelstrom of wild thoughts, the mate grasped for a plan of action. There was no time, of course, to make an overture of love. It would have been nonsensical to so much as cast her a smile. It would be like smil- ing at the teeth of a tigress. But he could pursue the same course on a dif- ferent tack. Gomichbooks (E@)