Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

LITTLE DARK SHIPS. flare could only be properly investigated after the inquisitive one had thrust his snout into the tunnel of temptation. Al- ways this night magic had to be sniffed at close range. And never once had the long, thin blade of steel omitted to shoot up into the soft throat, the moment the saurian tried to withdraw. Kum anchored his catch to the bank, and in the light of the flare stripped the hide from the warm, flinching carcass. It was a tedious business in that sweltering gehenna of mangroves and mosquitoes. But the clean-stripped hide meant gold from the check book of the Sydney merchants; it meant one day closer to the life of ease and rest he had promised himself in the near future. Moreover, there were certain parts of the white flesh that tasted like chicken when fried in his copper pan. A little pepper and boiled rice added made it a dish fit for a mandarin. ‘Five pons for the pelt,” he muttered. “Twenty more pelts an’ I finish. Under these devil trees the air is black. My lungs srow weak, But my children go to school, my father blesses me. What does the bad air matter!” The dawn showed like a tiger’s robe flung across the naked east. The sea mirrored each tawny smear of the far-stretched robe until it changed to the milk-white garment of day. Above the booming note of surf Kum caught the crisp sound of a naked foot on the pebbles. The little Chinaman peered from his hut door at a white man, stand- ing ten yards away in the shelter of a bhutang tree. He was young and half naked. Down the smooth length of his boyish limbs were the red scars from the reefs he had struck. His skin was biscuit brown; his dark hair dripped brine and weeds. He stared hard and inquiringly at the Chinaman, like one counting the last throw in a desperate gamble, ‘“ Hello, Chink!” he said without mov- ing nearer. ‘‘ Got any grub, or coffee—in the name of God? I’m beat!” Just here his young legs seemed to aban- don him. He fell in a heap in the sand. 74 929 It is said that pity entered the China- man with the dawn of the human race. Ling knelt beside the boy and poured some whisky through his clenched teeth. Then he chafed his wrists, and with the instinct that is older than the apes, he massaged the flesh under the faintly beating heart. ‘You come along just now,” he said cheerfully. ‘‘ Plenty coffee, bymby. 4H), ho; you sit up, boy! Sun too strong, heah!”’ Instead of sitting up, the boy slept for five hours, like one whose body has been beaten and drugged. Over his half naked limbs the Chinaman placed a screen of palm fronds to shelter him from the blis- tering sun. When he woke the Chinaman was holding a cup of strong coffee to his lips. The boy sat up and with curious glances at the sun, uttered a suppressed cry. Kum patted his arm soothingly. “ You keepee quiet. Takee pull. Why fo’ you worry?” he spoke with almost womanly tenderness. Gulping the coffee, the boy ate ravenous- ly of some fried bananas and rice placed before him in a tin pannikin, Between each hurried mouthful his eyes made lightning darts across the surf line, where the reef formed a whaleback silhouette against the sun’s fiery rays. “I’m going to remember you as a pal, Chink,” he said at last. ‘“ And I’ll say it of your kind,” he added with an effort, “ you never put it over a white man!” The Chinaman’s soft eyes explored the shreds of canvas clothing that clung to the other’s body, a wan smile crinkling his saf- fron face. ‘You bin in chokee!” he intoned with a sigh. ‘“ Wha’ fo’?” The boy’s shoulders twitched, while the ghost of a grin touched his dry lips. “ For killing a man, Chink! Name of Conlon,” he added with startling brevity. Then, as if overcome by his undue lapse into speech, shook himself like a collie that has taken a thrashing. ‘““T’m as full of sea water as a bilge pipe,” he confided after another cup of coffee. ‘‘ And those bluenose sharks are man hun- ters, too!” COMmicloo (©