The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

THE THING THAT WAS CAESAR’S. It sure is a goose all right, too,” he interpolated. “ You will never get capital to come here if. you do not adopt methods a little less glaring than these that you have tried on me. It just happens that you have miscued on me. “We have not yet committed our- selves irrevocably to the work, and our credits are established, not with the Bank of Japan, where.they might be attached, but in the branch of the Hong-Kong and Shanghai at Shang- hai itself. “T simply want to tell you, sir, that you and your precious friend, Colonel Itasura, are a pair of blundering, crude, seventh-century thieves. Is that plain enough? Ordinary, bun- gling, commonplace thieves. I shall go straight to Yeddo and lay the whole matter before your department of labor and learn what the elder statesmen of Nippon think of such a scheme. I will not pay you one cent.” “Ah! An’ ze yong leddee of Eng- lish? She will lige being keeped on ze plague sheep wisout landing for so long as ze imperial government - off China choose—” But Oakes, without wasting more time, for the Futami Maru was near- ly ready to drop her buoy, had start- ed down the stairs, and did not see the little yellow-faced captain of in- dustry as he ran to the window behind him, from which he waved a white flag, that was immediately answered from the launch near the Atlanta. In reply the launch sagged slowly into the Atlanta’s starboard quarter, and an official ran quickly up the side. Oakes went to the hatuba — the boat-landing—as quickly as he could walk without attracting attention on the street, and his launch pushed off for the Futami Maru. She had cast off her moorings by now, and as he signaled his steersman to go yet faster he was suddenly aware of the other launch that was making for the same goal. The two boats were running on the 589 two long legs of an isosceles triangle, with the Futami Maru at the apex. “Who in the world can that be? It’s no official, or there would be the yellow triangle flag at her stern in a Chinese port.” Stern down in a wake of hen own making, the other launch shot up astern of him a few hundred yards away, and Oakes was astounded to see a white man standing in the stern sheets waving wildly at him. Closer and closer yet she came, till the two ran at half speed under the quarter of the Futami Maru. Seizing the side-ropes, Oakes sprang to the deck, where Marjorie stood waiting: to welcome him with warmly out- stretched hands. “Did you have time to get all your things?’’ as asked as casually as he could. “Oh, yes. I had no trouble at all. Captain Innes explained it all to me, and I came at once, of course, and I rather imagine, from the excited sig- nals that they are making from the hotel to the Atlanta, that I did not come a moment too soon. I nearly left this in my haste.” she held out toward him the little silver box that Hemingway had given her. Oakes took it in his hand and turned to observe the signal that she spoke of. The other launch had swung to its boathook and, even as he looked, it dropped astern in the wake that was beginning to ripple behind the steamer. A man ran-hurriedly up the ladder as three sailors strove to haul it up into place to lash it fast, and as Oakes turned he saw the disheveled head of Hemingway appear above the rail. Oakes gasped his disbelief and dropped the silver box tinklingly up- on the deck. CHAPTER VI. UTTERLY taken aback for a space, Oakes and Marjorie ‘stood at gaze, COMicdoo S CO@