Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

244 concerned jor his safety——why, he did not know unless the girl was absolutely in love with him. This brought its thrill, but it also reminded of the other part of her warning, he would be killed by the superstitious and hysterical Herzog. As he stood there on the verge of reaching for her, he checked himself. “* Senorita” He was uncertain what words to choose. A new feeling welled up within him. He felt himself in the presence of that same saint-like figure who had first come down the stairs to soothe the savages of the ship channel waterfront. He knew that some- thing had changed her—something vital and consuming. He blamed himself. “T have come here to your chamber, ‘senorita. It is long after midnight. If they find out—you are compromised. I have soiled your name.” ‘“No—I sent for you!” “T heard the call—not when you ptt it in words but when you were playing upon that harp. It was clearer than any words could be. They warned me I would be killed—but I came. How could any man have refused? What is a life to a moment like this?’ He imprisoned her hand. She was too frail and too bewildered to resist; the grip was inexorable. “ What a death it would be!” he whis- pered exultantly. “ I thought perhaps there might have been an assassin crouched be- hind that bed. How puny, how inconse- quential, how meaningless death is when there is—love!” He drew her to him, she put her fingers over his mouth. This was no time, no place—in the room sacred to her ancestor— to speak of profane things. But he was not to be silenced. “You sent for me—I heard your voice in those chords! Everyone in the den there under- stood. You want me!” Again her fingers were upon his mouth, playing upon it. He was reminded of that impassioned sonata. Here was a song played upon his lips—she was not silencing them. He had the thrill—a sensation as if she had thrown herself upon him with the same fervor, with the same ferocity, with ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. which she had played of love upon that harp. Then capriciously she wanted to be free. She fluttered or rather writhed. He felt the futile but exquisite struggle, the grace, the heat, the moist shoulder. He bent to kiss her, but her palm stopped his mouth. It was not as she had warned, the hand burned when he kissed it. Footfalls echoing down the long black corridor, the grunting and sniffling of the mozo, the conflict of subdued but angry voices, and there came a knock on the bat- ten door. Glamours broke from the girl’s throb- bing embrace. “T’ll keep this a secret,” he said. The window gave upon a hooded balcony, masked in filigreed iron, hidden darkly by palmetto, fern and vine. Over the sill Glamours climbed and swung himself be- low, dropping upon the flagstone walk of the patio. As he swore to himself ‘that that tryst would be forever unknown to all but the girl, the mozo and himself, he was aware of an aroma sweeter and more suffo- cating than that fetid swamp air which clung to the garden. A woman’s voice— at once harsh and wheedling—was breath- ing into his ear: “That hundred dollars you mentioned, mister—”’ A parrot laughed raucously: ‘“* Avast there, Lord Stinko! awash with blood!” He turned, too surprised, maddened, to vent the oath in his throat. Cora was standing there in the patio just behind his shoulder, lurking suavely, complacently in an aura of fragrant moon- The deck’s beams, pepperwood and pomade. Her palm — thrust into the full glare of a binnacle lamp. Glamours cast a shuddering glance at it. A palm ravishing to the touch had just been upon his lips. Here was a ghostly contrast, a hand without life, without warmth, a pudgy mass of wrinkles which no palmist in the world could read! In that one glance at her palm, Glamours saw the history of thwarted love, of crime, the slack of passion, the bloodless flesh of life, a palm kissed no longer except by the lips of coin. Gomicbook (C@