Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

THE SCANDAL ON KITIKAT KEY. “Well, so am I,” he stated defiantly. “That makes it even. Neither of us has anything to worry about. Shall we ‘be friends?” —, “Why not?’ Susan replied with her nicest smile. “I think it would be a very sensible idea. And now I’d like ‘to turn in. I’m tired. Where do I sleep, Mr. Amadon ?”’ “In there, Miss Finch,” said Gerald, pointing toward his sleeping room, He would be a gentleman and a per<ect host if it killed him. “ But that’s your room.” “ Tt’s quite all right,” Gerald assured her. ‘‘I can sleep anywhere. I can sleep standing up. I can sleep hanging to a subway strap.” “T positively will not put you out of your room,” the girl declared. “I will sleep here—on that couch.” “ Not at all,” was Gerald’s emphatic response. “ That’s where I’m going to bunk.”’ “Then J’ll sleep on the hammock on the veranda,” said Susan. “The mosquitoes,” Gerry pointed out, “ will eat you alive.” “You may have noticed,” Susan backfired, “that I have a very tough hide.” “T think it’s a shame for two nice people like us to carry on this way,” Gerald regretted. “Good night, Mr. Amadon.” “Good night, Miss Finch. I hope you won’t mind storms at close quar- ters out in the open, because we're go- ing to have a baby hurricane and a thunderstorm before morning, and when the wind blows from the south the rain sweeps across that porch as if it were squirting out of a hose, and you're going to be soaked to the skin. Moreover, the lightning out there is pretty spectacular, on account of those tall coconut palms growing on the point. They attract lightning, you know. Hadn’t you better change your 501 that, since she had been a*‘small girl, thunder and lightning storms had al- ways terrified he. She would rather die at the hand of Thor than admit to any weakness to Gerald Amadon. She slipped out on the veranda where her suitcases stood, and Gerald present- ly blew out the lamp on the living room table. After awhile he heard the squeaking of the hamock ropes as she climbed in; then, a little later, he heard the report of a resounding thwack. Susan was mosquito hunting! The slapping on the veranda became quite vigorous; he was almost sure that he heard, presently, a distinct “ damn,” but this, he reasoned, could not have been. A. girl with Susan’s pure mind could not have stooped to profanity over a mere mosquito. A little later silence reigned, broken only by the lisping murmur of wavelets creeping up on the beach and falling back mto the sea. Susan Finch trou- bled him. He wondered why she wore so many clothes. It was a novelty, to see a girl in this day and age who had so many clothes on. He fell asleep finally with the assur- ance that she clothed herself in this way because she had some unfortunate de- formity. She was, naturally, ashamed of it, and, naturally, she wished to con- ceal her misfortune from the eyes of man, Certainly, he reasoned, she was either knock-kneed or bow-legeed—and probably much worse. Well, time would tell. _ He was awakened by the rustling of fronds of the coco palms which sur- rounded the bungalow. They were swishing about violently this way and that; agitated by a rising wind. It came in sharp, quick puffs, each one a little stronger than the one before. The rumbling of thunder was now closer at hand, and from time to time the win- dows and the open doorway were frames of lurid, greenish-blue lumi- nance. mind and use the sleeping room?” . Susan turned pale. She would not Without warning rain fell and aS confess to this impertinent young man drummed on the roof. ‘The wind ~ s es ~ comicbooks.com —