Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

LITTLE DARK SHIPS. Chard was standing six feet away from the table. He looked up with the jerk of a lashed steer at the cold eyed commission- er, seated on the biscuit box. A weary, scoffing smile split the dry mask of mud about his boyish lips. ‘ You’re funnier than the old mummy in the court who threw me among the convicts at Poison River—for life, Mr. Commis- sioner! You know what the black gang is like out on those swamps!”’ Lester flinched and twisted the papers under his elbow. “I’ve asked you a ques- tion,” he said sternly. ‘“‘ The swamp and the black gangs at Poison River are still there—if you don’t answer!” Chard quaked to his reef-scarred heels. For an instant his brain reeled in the blind vertigo that catches men before they die. The white moisture of his agony crawled through the caked mud slits under his eyes. ‘“‘ There was a reason why I shot Mike Conlon, Mr, Commissioner!” he faltered and stopped. “ It was never given at your trial. What was the reason?” Lester’s face had become as pitiless as the mask of a savage. He was civilization’s last gesture in that abode of crime and cunning. He was there to sift, punish or redress the bitter wrongs of native and white man alike. Chard’s eyes became alive with sudden understanding. This man was not like the others—the gang of courthouse wolves who had mocked and jeered at his silence, a si- lence forced upon him by the vicious mind- ed old judge who had sought to drag a young girl’s name into a story that reeked of crime! And in a court packed with the scum of the ports, yellow men and black, all agog for the name of the white girl for whom Chard had fired his fatal shot! Chard’s voice sounded clear in the silence. Behind his stiff, erect figure, the sun stooped like 2 huge blood drop to the rim of the sea. ‘The reason I shot Conlon was for the reason that men shoot iron lizards and the snakes over there!” His hands gestured away to the mud bank. “I was a super- cargo on board Conlon’s schooner, White Witch. It was my second trip and last. I found that Conlon was owned body end 933 soul by a slaver named Van Galt, in Son- golo. “Van Galt owns a dozen dives and gambling houses in Songolo and Macassar. He keeps scores of girls in his orchestras and saloons. It looks respectable until you see a list of his agencies that end in the cinnabar boats and the slave hells of Malay! ‘Tm just a man like you, Mr. Commis- sioner. I didn’t spend my employer’s time fussing around the old wops and drunks who used to fill Van Galt’s dives. But I jibbed at the cinnabar boats—manned by French convicts from Noumea—and the bleached sepulchres Van Galt made of the men and women who fell into his black holds, “Well, the White Witch lay off Putak, one night, in October. Conlon asked me to go ashore and wait orders for cargo. Only a week before I had picked up a letter from Van Galt to Conlon. It was full of in- structions for the carrying off of a white girl from Putak, and two others from Port Moresby.” The commissioner put his hand to his lips as though a blood drop had welled from his heart. He did not speak. Chard con- tinued: ‘““Conlon had friends everywhere; in the courthouses, in the customs, and among the native police. Van Galt’s money did the tickling. And in a beach town like Putak, ten pounds will get a man or woman tied by the feet! ‘““Now, I knew the name of the girl in Putak, Mr. Commissioner. Her father’s store had its back fence on the beach. Never mind who she is. She’d never heard of Van Galt or Conlon, or me or a score of other damned loafers ready to link her name with blackbirders and slave agents. “Therefore, Mr. Commissioner, I bring you to that back fence that ran down to the beach. Instead of joining the boys in Raff- erty’s whisky shop, I burrowed into the sand and waited for Conlon to come right up to the fence. He came with the good old blanket on his arm, in case the young lady might start screaming. The schooner’s dingy stood ready to pick him up, once he was clear of the house with the girl. COMmiiclooe C©