Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

By ALBERT DORRINGTON BABEL of voices drifted from the A fleet of pearling luggers, straddling across the six-fathom channel of the Ki Wi bank. There was no wind; the sea shone like grease paint where the helmeted divers bobbed up and down hike goblins in a pantomime. Norry Denham climbed from the cabin of his nine-ton lugger, Sea Witch, a small parcel of pearls in his hand. A slim, sea- browned girl of nineteen was standing at the rail, watching the black-billed hawks swooping over the tide-washed banks. She turned quickly at sight of the gems Norry held. There were eighteen pearls in all, milk white stones, glistening with the matchless orient of the sea. They represented months of untiring labor along the coral-strewn floor of the channel, where death ran in the twisting currents and in the ghostly move- ments of giant stingrays and sharks. “TT ask six thousand dollars for them, Elean! They’re worth ten thousand. But I’d like old Ty Foo to feel he’s getting a 6ll bargain. His schooner’s at Nadir Point. He’s buying all the pinkies of the season!” Elean had come from Sydney to spend a month with Norry on board the pretty, snow white lugger. They had been married a year, but owing to Norry’s work on the banks she had found it necessary to live with her sister, a thousand miles away! She drew him to the rail with a little sigh of pleasure. Translated into sterling, six thousand dollars seemed a colossal sum to her. . : But Norry shook his head gloomily. After he had paid his divers and shell- openers, to say nothing of the storekeeper’s account at Thursday Island, the six thou- sand dollars would begin to look like the price of a new hat and Elean’s ticket home. ‘“What’s the matter, grumps?” Elean laughed, running her fingers over the creases in his brow. ‘“ It’s not so bad for a season’s work! And it’s better than hunting a job at a glue factory. And be- lieve me, Norry, it nearly came to that last time you got left in the big town. And why cCOmiclbooks CO