Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

BUCCANEER BLOOD. in story or song could Cameron and Tim have evoked more glorious than the scene in which they were to act the leading parts? There was an old forgotten chateau, hidden away in a desolate coast of swamps; there it was besieged by four cutthroats whose expedition was kept secret from all the out- side world; there was Cameron, burning with the love of combat; and there was the indispensable element of all heroic adven- ture—the maiden in distress! Abandoning his first attempt, which had been to enter the front door and engage in an immediate duel with the renegades, Cam- eron ran into the patio upon which the girl’s window looked down. Tim followed and the two swarmed up the vines of the wall with the ease of two seamen running up the shrouds. Swinging themselves over a railing of elaborately filigreed iron, they found themselves on the gallery just outside the girl’s window. “Mon brave!” the girl exclaimed. “ Again Destiny has sent you to us!” She wrung her hands. Her face was in the dark as it was bent forward and tilted up to Cameron in tragic earnestness. The candle behind her made a somber halo of the black hair. “ What has happened, mensieur, I cannot tell. It is some terrible thing. The enemies from the past have come back to haunt this house!” “ T know what has happened,” Cameron said. “I can only thank God that you are safe. But.we must be quick—” “Ves, monsieur—my poor old grand- mére—you will save her, monsieur! ‘These demons have come up as if from the morass outside. They have come, sucked from the swamps by the moon herself! From out of hell perhaps—I know not!” “Four cutthroats—that’s all. Not devils but the riffraff of some water- front.” “But no, monsieur, they are demons! You have come monsieur—as the champion. To fight our fight! And a terrible fight it will be, monsieur, for they cannot be kin to to this earth!” “Tf you think they’re demons, I have a charm against them.” Cameron reas- sured her. “ It is this gun.” “ And this gun, too, skipper!” his cabin- TA 97 boy chimed in. “Tl bring the lubbers down howling to the decks!” “Mon brave! And mon petit!” the girl cried fervently. “Come in, Come in, Brethren of the Coast! Destiny is good to poor Jacqueline, for her brave is come! Climb over the sill. Enter my chamber! God is with you, messieurs both! as he was always on the side of the Raiglons in se ancient combats!” Cameron and the boy climbed in aa found themselves in a vast gloom of shadows and beams which were concen- trated in an open chest, a pallid candle and the slender wraith-like form of the girl. “ They are down there, monsieur.” “And your grandmother?” “She is before them—as a prisoner be- fore judges, wincing under their gibes = insults!” “ Mademoiselle, they will pay for overy insult a thousand times!” Cameron assured her. “ *Sblood!” Tim added. “I'll fill ’em so full of lead they'll sag like tops’ls in a dead calm!” “Show us the way to the stairs,” Cam- eron said. The girl lifted her hand. “No! No! It must not be! This petit—he is too frail, even though he so brave! We must not send him to fight grown men!” Tim Holloway muttered to himself: “ Oh, hell!” “Nor is it right that you. yourself go down there alone, mon brave,” the girl said to Cameron. “ Shall I be guilty of sending you—one man who is so courageéous—into a den of wild beasts? No, I myself shall go. Then when the time is propitious I will call you.” This obviously was ridiculous. Having a fairly good idea of the general character of the intruders, Cameron had no intention whatsoever of letting this girl fall into their hands. Diplomacy under ordinary condi- tions might be better than the use of force. But there was no time for diplomacy now. “ Mademoiselle will remain here!” he said definitely. “T am resolved!” she announced. “ You will be killed if you go down. Assuredly they will not raise their hands against me— COMMICLOoOokKs (C@)