Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

64 self, but of which I have now become con- vinced. My father’s health is failing seri- ously and rapidly, I am afraid. I know. he’s afraid to tell me or let me see him in the spells which are the only possible account- ing for his stays in his room—afraid to alarm me. ‘‘ And now—lI want you to help me per- suade him to see a doctor at once, if you know of a competent one in Limanau. It is not going to be so easy, since he won't admit that anything ails him. But he has confessed to extreme weariness — too ex- treme weariness. And—I’m going to base my plea on that. -What doctot did you have in your illness?” Dan did some rapid thinking. He was convinced that the girl believed exactly what she said. It was not for him to at- tempt to disabuse her mind of an error like that. | The most immediate problem, however, was an answer to her question about a Limanau medico. Of these he knew abso- lutely nothing. With the people of the town he had had only very limited dealings, the exchanges of fish or mollusks or wood for other food. |The German fellow-beach- comber had died unattended. Unattended, likewise, had been the birth of the latest offspring of the Yorkshireman. And he had explained his appearance by a sickness which must have been quite re- cent to have left the marks upon him he - showed; and had acknowledged sufficent stay in the place to have familiarized him- self with its character. A ship’s mate taken sick on a voyage is hardly apt to be left in port so stranded as to have to recover or. die without any medical attention. The needed bolstering lie came readily enough to his mind. He could give any. opinion as to the doctors in Limanau—a very poor one would save him -the other difficulty which might attend efforts to get a drunkard who won’t admit any ailment to see a doctor. He hesitated an instant, to figure a little as to whether this particular untruth held any possible snares to involve him further—looked up, and saw that she was eying him earnestly, her face a plea for his help. A funny thing happened to Dan just > THE ARGOSY. then. The lie choked in his throat. He couldn’t lie and look into those big, deep- gray, just now almost childishly trusting eyes—not in his own behalf. But what happened next puzzled him afterward even more than this odd dis- ability. He was telling what surprised him quite as much as it must have surprised the girl—the very discreditable truth. CHAPTER XIV. A BARGAIN. . ISS HOPE—I have not been sick in Limanau. I have never been what could rightly be called sick in my life. I have been—well, I heard you call the mate that just left a quitter over there on the beach yesterday morning. It was the one word I caught of what you were saying. And it fitted me so perfectly I thought you meant it for me. “That was why I looked at you so funny as you came past me down the beach. I—” “Past you?” the girl interrupted him. “T didn’t see—”’ “You saw a wretched, dirty, unkempt beach-comber—and that was me.”’ She stared at him hard. “T can’t believe—why, you couldn’t—” She was quite at a loss to identify him or to believe his words. ~‘“‘ Oh, why did you tell me?” she then cried. “I see it now—your eyes. But—” “God knows why I’m telling you—I guess it’s because you look so honest it’s hard to lie to you,’’ Dan responded, grow- ing regretful at his truthfulness as he saw its effect upon her. | ‘“ But—how could you be—that?” she finally urged. “I lost a ship,” he answered. Those words were apt in themselves to explain al- most anything to the daughter of a ship’s captain. “It wasn’t my ship, but I was on the bridge—and it was mostly my fault that she hit and sank. And—lI guess I lost my nerve with the ship. Anyhow, inside a couple of weeks I was put in command of @ little one of my own, by an old friend. And, I spent two hours of night-watch on the bridge. :