Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 98: what you’re looking at

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

88 stood there at the end of the table, a grim, proud figure. She looked like a duchess who by the clap of her hand might summon re- tainers from every corner of that dim hall. She looked like an aged queen, but she had no army to answer her summons. She was confronted by a power which physically was greater than hers. Her only force was represented in the body of an aged and fear- ridden negro. But she had certain other powers. ““ Let us be quiet,” she said. “‘ Jacqueline must not be frightened. She must hear nothing of this despicable affair. Let us manage this the right way—not by force, for we have none; but by strategy. Let them enter.” The men on the other side could be heard with alarming clarity, now that a part of the door had given way. ‘““'The wood’s rotten!”’ one of them was laughing. ‘‘ Shall we give you another taste of it, or are you leavin’ us come in like gentlemen? I can bust it in with me fist alone!” A chain rattled, an old bolt squeaked, a tremendous iron key was turned, removing the final barrier. Quintilian fled through the vestibule to the adjacent dining hall, where his mistress stood. From behind the table they could look down a dark, arched vista to the en- trance door. The three visitors had already shoved the door open and were standing with their backs to the flood of moonlight. A hulk- ing man with high, massive shoulders, and no perceptible neck, led the way. He was followed on the left by a tall, shambling, yellow-skinned brute with kinky hair; on the right by a crafty looking old seaman with white hair and a palsied way of swing- ing his head. Stealthily and hurriedly they left that patch of moonlight, making for the only bit of light they could see in the house—that seven-branched candlestick on the dining table. They were like men scurrying from one bit of cover to the next. Apparently they disliked that little intervening space of darkness. Once standing in the glow of candles and facing the old chatelaine, they felt some- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. what relieved. The leader slipped his pistol back again to his hip. A weapon of that sort seemed very much out-of place in the present situation. He was facing no resist- ance, no obvious danger, no tangible force. He was confronted merely by a woman— a very old and proud looking grandam in whose presence ordinarily seamen would feel constrained to remove their caps. There was, furthermore, a composure about the old lady, a coolness, which was extremely discomfiting because it was so unnatural. The hulking mass of bone and muscle which was the leader of this delegation of brute force seemed tongue-tied. He tucked his chin farther into his huge pigeon chest and peered up through bushy eyebrows at the stately presence whose house he had entered. He saw that she showed no trace of fear—at least, not through that mask of wrinkled parchment. “You have come here in the dead of night,” she was saying in precise, modu- lated tones. ‘“‘ You have come forcing your way in, as thieves and robbers. You can- not have come on any mission of peace. Who are you?” The leader took off the leather-visored cap which fitted closely upon his low cranium. He bowed. Somehow it seemed quite harmless, quite necessary to bow in that august presence. “Who are you?” ; “Three Creole gentlemen,” he: an- nounced, putting one hairy paw to his chest and with the other indicating his two com- panions. The dowager winced. What a sacrilege to use this term which she herself could justifiably claim! There was no excellence of race in those rapscallions; no purity of descent; neither French nor Spanish blood. One of them, in fact, was evidently an oc- toroon! “Then what is your mission?” she asked coldly. “To drink to Raiglon and his loot!” the leader of the trio replied. His own voice had calmed him. He felt more at home. ‘‘ And we’re good enough to drink to him, too, I’ll tell yer. Think we’re water front scum don’t yer? Think we're thievin’, Gomichbooks _—