Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

‘In a captain,” SO ENDS nm Kew of beit, emphasizing. the narrowmg of his hips beneath bis wide a and broad shoulders. He was swart with the sum, but there was a tinge of crimson heightening the tan on his cheeks, and his lips were full and red. He was clean-shaven, his hair black and curling, but close-cropped. His nose sprang owt aquilme from between dark eyes that gazed om the girl with a look that was provocative, 2 look thet needed little to become posseseive. He was magnificently muscled, and saad the height of a ful? fathom. There was something of a swagger about him, even in hss lounging attitude, somethmg predatory mm the growing of his features. The girl stirred under his persistent re- pale-gold, her eyes sky-blue, their curving frmges brown. Her skim was cameo-pale with the heat, but her mouth was brightly pink. For all her lassitude she was healthy, fall of Hfe and the love of living. The mate’s eyes were fixed on the salk- clad ankles and the graceful swell of what the shifting skist revealed of her slemder legs. Then it traveled appraisingly, boddly admiring, up the slim, rounded length of her, and rested on her face, slowly turning the hue of the imner surface of a pmk-lined shell. “ Skipper taking his nap?’’ he asked. “ He always has his sieste at this time, . She answered. “ You Should know that” “Surely. Regular as a clock, the skipper. Ticking away, day in, day out, always the same, never too fast, always correct, stand- ard time*® “IT imagine that is a valuable attribute she replied, shifting her look from his with a certain suggestion of effort. The mate smiled with a flash of white teeth. “ Aunty!” The elder woman moaned a litle, and answered without opening her eyes, a little petulantly. Little beads of perspération gleamed on her forehead. “ What is it, Mary?” ’t you want to go down into the cabim? It is unbearably hot up here. We _ Can get the boy to start the pushes.” The aunt groaned aga. THE DAY. 585 “It can’t be worse than it is on deck. ‘Fhe san pricks my eyes through the lids. I believe that awning makes it worse. Very well.” She got up primly, and the girl fol- lowed her. Opposite the mate, the latter turned her head toward him, deliberately accepting his challenge. The blue -eyes fought the brown, and faltered. “ See you later,” he said, and, as she made no answer, moving on, slight, graceful m her white draperies; be smiled again. In his cabin, off the trade-room, Sykes, the cockney supercargo, was compounding a ram punch for Pinckney, the second-mate, and Evans, the Welsh carpenter. These, with the skipper and the mate, were the only white men aboard the barkentime. The cook was Chinese; all others Malays. “Ie am’t wot ‘it ought ter be, wivout hice,” said Sykes. ‘‘ But the lime takes the bloomin’ thirst out of yer, an’ the tamarinds sost of puckers up yore cheek linin’s an’ cools you orf.” “ And the rum leaves you worse off than you was,” said Pinckney. ‘Want me to leave it owt of yore’s?” asked Sykes. “I thought not. Well, ’ere’s lookin’ at yer both.” They half-drained their glasses a at a gulp and, almost immediately, the sweat broke out on their foreheads. The Welshman scooped his off with the back of his hand, the other two mopped i up with bandanas. All three were in singlets and duck trousers, thew feet naked. Overhead was the soft shuffing of the sailors, the faimt sound of their chant—Bada-a-ak! Trama, trameah, tra-ma-ahk! Suddenly it was topped by a bellowed order. The shufiing quickened. The chant died owt and was not resumed. “ BullyzyY ’em again,” said the Weish- mans. ‘Just make ’em sullem. He don’t know how to handle ‘em ‘* He’s new in these seas,” said Pinckney. “ Doa’t see why the skipper picked him.”’ “E knows his bizness, outside of that,” said Sykes. ‘“ And there hain’t much choice of mates these days. They’re scarce. The skipper ‘ud ’ave myde you ‘ first,’ Pinky, rf you c’ud navigate.” ‘“T know it. I’m as high as 18 get. But Te a3 good 2 man as ham, outside of shoot- in’ the sum. }’ve kad no schoolin’. Nine- Ut Suc Origin an Keo! an (C 600) 2 CO THE OHIO STATE Lb