Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

THE RED With a sudden fierce and mastering movement he drew her to him; his grasp on her waste tightened; his great hand cupped the knotted hair on her neck; and he drew the gleaming, irradiated face where a strange light seemed to palpitate ever nearer to his own. Their lips met and clung. Bruce lifted his eyes and gazed out with a sort of reckless triumph, and Lena’s bright head lolled back. Suddenly the silence was broken by a hoarse and animal-like cry: In an even greater amazement the guests watched a shambling, bent, ungainly figure stumble forward, uttering the while in a sort of frenzied monotone: ‘‘ No—no—no—lI say —mine—mine—” It was Ezry, the Merriweathers’ hired man. He had reached the two and was now tearing with a sort of nervous strength at the.arms that encircled Lena’s body. Bruce Hammond’s mouth widened into an amazed grin; a great laugh came roar- ing up from his throat. Lena’s eyes crin- kled into cruel slits out of which a light of scorn and ridicule poured. And now before their eyes, the sham- bling, loose-hung, pathetic figure, whose head habitually hung forward from his shoulders as from beneath a yoke, suddenly reared itself to an unimagined height; the head sprang up; the eyes—those patient, following eyes of an old dog, became torches; the hands that commonly fumbled over the mending of fences and machinery, struck out fiercely with an unwonted tool. There arose a sudden startled cry. '“ Look out—he’s got something there— My God!” Bruce’s mouth, a great red open circle, of a sudden hung loose; his eyes fell dully upon a spreading and sodden spot upon his shirt; his great body began to waver down- ward. - Ezry stood staring stupidly at an old, broken-bladed knife with which he was ac. customed to peel off kindlings for the kit- chen fire. It dripped; and he threw it down in a sort of timid disgust. All the spirit had gone out of him. He stood cow- ering and whimpering in a sort of mongrel whine until some one led him away. FIDDLE. 708 Lena had got pasty. Her cheeks sagged; the great, untidy twist of her hair like a wrung mop dragged over her shoulders. Where was all that brave look ef queens? Here was only a clumsy girl with thick - calves in white cotton stockings, a striped petticoat, and a gown so faded that the flowers printed upon it seemed to have withered. : Someone took command; a space was - cleared; the blood staunched, and a doctor summoned; and in the waiting, huddled into groups, they suddenly remembered the fiddler. ~ He had vanished. The _ enshrouding cloak, the shadowy hat, the fiddle-case— all had disappeared. They recalled the fiddle—its amazing and ruddy color—its black, clotted stains—That sinister color took on a vague, unspoken significance. They remembered the shivering sound of the fiddle; the cunning wooden shell that had seemed to house a very breath of life —whose urge they had blindly obeyed— seemed now to their superstitious fancy to have drawn its power from a more than human source. They called to mind how the lights had flared, how the coarse attire of the girls had seemed to take on the sheen and glamor of fine fabrics, and the stars and roses that had been their faces: And there was the spell that had overtaken Bruce and Lena, that had betrayed Lois, and transformed, for his little moment, the silent Ezry. And the cloaked fiddler—whence had he come? Whither had he gone? They had opened, to find him on the door-step, but his going was less than the passing of a ‘shadow. There were those who boldly af- firmed that there was hell magic in it. Bruce was removed to a room of the Merriweathers, and Lena nursed him. He was destined never fully to recover from this strange thrust; the slightest cold or exposure thereafter brought with it a re- turn of the old pain; and from that time he seemed to be afflicted with a vague, rheu- matic turn. He thought of Lois, but he could not ask to see her; and she never came. The Merriweathers did well by Bruce; and when he was sufficiently recovered, he and Lena ebook