Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 110: what you’re looking at

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Doz of enthusiasm, and gazed about him once more, sighing. The window, to be sure! Considered solely as a means of exit, one might rate a window fully as valuable as any door. Richard arose and dragged his way over to the window. It was part- ly open now; incautiously, he pushed up the sash and leaned out. A foggy, dying moon bathed the scene in faintest, sickliest light. Well, there was the good, solid old earth which supported Colonel Bragg’s home and, of course, a few other houses. Richard gazed at it with waxing gloom. It wasn’t a mile away, straight down, he assumed, although at first glance that seemed about the correct estimate. But it was every bit of twenty-five feet from this point, and beside the house on this side ran a wide, hard concrete driveway, than which there are few less comfortable things whereon to fall. Still more, between Richard and the drive stretched sheer stone wall, with never a convenient vine, never even the suggestion of rough spots that might serve as hand and toe holds. So, if one wished to leave by this route, one did not climb down; one merely dropped. Mr. Melton shook his head sadly. He was sound and athletic enough and all that, but he had never practiced dropping on concrete drives. He might land on his feet and then again he might land on his head, if his hold here happened to slip, in which latter case beyond slightest question somebody else would be building the new Combined Products factory. And in whatever way he landed, he was bound to liven up the night, mo- mentarily so calm, with a crash that might easily rouse the whole house. Richard shook his head dismally. - Well, then, the sheets? They could be twisted into a rope. He shuffled wack and studied the one visible sheet with suddenly keen interest. About seven feet long, eh? That meant about fourteen feet for the two of them. But the heaviest thing in the room, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. about which he would have to knot his rope—incidentally using up some eight or ten feet for that purpose alone—was the chest of drawers, itself a good four- teen feet from the window. However, the darned chest of drawers wasn’t built into the house, was it? Mr. Melton put his strong young shoulder against the solid old thing and pushed; and as it moved a reluctant two inches an unoiled caster beneath gave forth a shriek exactly like that of the condemned pig at the most cheerless point of his trip through the slaughter house. Richard, perspiring suddenly, pushed no more. He stood and listened, for many seconds. Well, that one hadn’t roused ’em, but another like it almost would. He relaxed and shuffled much less steadily back to his bed; and there Mr. Melton crawled beneath the covers with a long, thin, hollow groan, for he knew the worst at last: he was licked! For a man so honest there was no prettier way of putting the case to him- self. He was not to leave Firwold that early morning, He was not to be in his office and call up Colonel Bragg; he was not to dash from his two rooms and bath to the barber shop and back again to brush off the old blue serge and then return to Firwold and take his desperate chance. Nay, Richard was right here, right now, and here to stay. He groaned again and huried his face in the pillows. He was not the weeping kind, else he would have wept; but there was a quality in that groan more terrible, more heartbroken, than any tears. CHAPTER XIV. ANOTHER DAY. ND then, oddly enough, Mr. Mel- ton seemed aware that he really was not licked at all. It was a queer and vastly cheering sensation ; it seemed to have come upon him before he opened his eyes, which com PI —_ gt ts ae ee ; “ AY st Sa ee Fe dk eee eee Oe Ebooks: -- yt