Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

eee aa” SO ENDS THE DAY. the heat, to his hobby, the correction of charts of the Java, Flores, Banda, and Ara- fura Seas. Pinckney held the deck until the first dog-watch, when Samson would relieve him, from four until six. At two o’clock Sykes came on deck to go fishing in the bows, not from much hope of getting any fish, welcome as they would be, but from sheer desperation. Pinckney joined him. The crew squatted about in | such shadow as they could find. Evans was tinkering somewhere below decks. “What kind of lingo are they jabbering in?” Pinckney asked Sykes. The Malays were in small groups about the decks, talk- ing in low tones, with an animation unusual for such weather. ‘“‘ Harsk me somethin’ heasier,’”’ replied. Sykes. ‘I know. Malay pidgin an’ some Bengalee, but I can’t savvy that dialect. The whole bilin’ of ’em are on deck, too, watch-below an’ all.” ““Fo’c’sle must be a reg’lar furnace,” suggested Pinckney. “I s’pose so.” The hot afternoon droned on without a flutter of canvas, with- out a puff of -wind or the gathering of a cloud in the sky. In the cuddy the skipper found his moist hands interfering with his task, and stretched himself on a lounging- chair. niece joined him, both pale, from the stead- fast heat. The punkah-boy was dismissed, for the disturbance of the heated air only increased discomfort. Blinds were drawn over the skylight, and the cuddy was too dusky for reading or work. The two wemen lay on their rattan couches, silently hoping for a breeze, for rain, for any relief against the terrible op- pression and temperature that seemed to drain their bodies to the point of exhaus- tion, relaxed, thoughtless. Pinckney ‘left Sykes to hand over the deck to the first mate, and then went back into the bows. They had caught three fly- ing-fish, and believed the capture augured a change in the weather, besides promising a change of diet. Samson glanced aloft, sailor-fashion, andaimstantly noted that the clewlines of the main royal were hanging loose, as if the quarter-blocks had frayed jitized by (SOO gle Presently Miss Burton and her — them. There had been no wind to accom- plish this, and he strode to the bows. ‘““The main-royal clewlines are loose, Pinckney,” he said. ‘“‘ Didn’t you notice them?” “No, I didn’t,” answered Pinckney, ffettled at his tone. ‘They were all right when I took the deck. ‘ Chafed with the roll of the ship, I s’pose.”’ “Might have,” admitted Samson, and ordered Badoun to send two men aloft to reeve fresh lines. Mary Leigh came out of the cuddy, un- able to bear its confinement any longer. The mate noticed her out of the tail of his eye, but affected’ not to do so as he watched the two Malays, climbing nimbly, one of them the man called Telak, the one whom he had kicked. . Badoun saw her. She felt his glance upon her, in a sort of compelling hypnosis. His eyes, usually as impassive as dull jet, showed smoldering sparks. They made her shiver. Her whole being was de- pressed, nervously apprehensive of some- thing about to happen. her covertly, seemed careless to mask a mood half sensuous, appraising, insulting. Yet there was nothing openly to resent. She moved on closer to Samson. The two sailors had halted at the main- top, and shifted to the mainyard at the slings. The girl saw them peering down at the mate like resentful apes. ‘“‘ The royal, the royal, you pair of jib- bering orangs!’’ he suddenly bellowed up at them. “ Blast your yellow hides, do you have to make me come up there and show you how to do it?” Mary Leigh saw Badoun, the smeldering sparks in his eyes changed to flame, set his silver whistle, his serang’s pipe, to his lips, and blow a shrill call. Instantly the two Malays dropped like cats out of the rigging, fairly upon the struggling mate. The crew, transformed from quiet sailors to Malays gone suddenly amok, came leap- ing from every direction. They made no sound, but the astounded girl, held in a strange paralysis of inaction, saw the white roll of their eyes, the flash of their teeth as they grinned, the gleam of krises. She heard the mate’s oath as he 605 . Badoun, eyeing — MUGOOOK