The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

THE THING THAT WAS CAKSAR’S. Not for nothing does Great Britain maintain the most efficient coast guard in the world about her many beached possessions. Not for nothing do her ships guard the sea-lanes of the seven seas. The column of smoke shot fifty feet in air, and Oakes, seeing the sud- den gathering of the men behind the sampan, knew that it could mean but one thing. Afraid to launch the sampan for fear of the rifle fire from the rocks, they had but one course open to them. They promptly took it, and the two white men with dire misgivings saw suddenly the group break away from the boat in a wild attempt to rush the rocks with their knives. Instantly the two rifles opened upon them with deadly effect. It was not the wild firing of recruits or of desk- trained men who do not know one end of a rifle from the other. It was the cool, collected fire of men who had lived in the open and who could gaze unwinking into the very eye of the sun if need be, and they bent all their faculties to the task in hand. It was no long-range shooting now, for the rear sights were laid flat; and shooting at the very feet of the rush- ing group, the two white men fairly dazed them with the blaze of their fire. Five men got to the bottom ‘of the line of rocks. ‘The others had either run back to the sampan or else they lay between the boat and the boulder- strewn hillside. That some were only pretending, Oakes and Hemingway were sure; but it was with the most confident air in the world that, seeing the men run in under the dead space of the lowest line of rocks, Oakes reached back for his revolver and passed it quietly to Mar- jorie. She leaned over a big rock to take it, and Oakes, bending over, quiet- ly kissed her. “Use it if you have to, little girl,” he said. “It'll be over in a few min- utes now in one way or the other. Give me that ax, Kow Lung.” 609 Hemingway had been busily engaged in undoing the leather sling from his rifle. He twisted it deftly into a loop longer than the rifle itself and thrust his arm through it to the shoulder, grasping the rifle by the small of the stock. “Tt’s a great mistake,” he growled, “to think that a clubbed rifle is any good. [li show you a trick worth ten of it! Look!” He thrust the sling-bound rifle for- ward, turning it as he thrust. “Observe it, my son. The front sight is of forged steel an inch and a quarter high. If properly used it can cut a man’s eye out as neatly as an operating knife—as Tl show you ina few moments. “Now, then, Kow Lung, you tell em,” he said nervously. ‘ Tell ’em we're all set and waiting! Just a little farther to my right, Oakes. You cut right-handed, I presume. Most men do so when you have once swung to a cut; your left side will be defenseless— see? Sodeska, as our little friends up Kobe way say. Now, boy, you trans- late for me to that sea-thief yonder, and tell him that I say, as the old Johnnie said at the battle of Lake Regillus: “Tay thou on for Clusium While I lay on for Rome.” Kow Lung grinned somewhat yel- lowly and passed the ax as directed, and when, a moment later, Oakes, ax in hand, stepped into the narrow pas- sageway at the crest of the pile of boulders, he was suddenly aware of a silent figure that squatted near him, an unsheathed butcher-knife in his hand. “You want your share of it, too, do you, Kow Lung? I won't forget this, boy. Maybe so T’zai no can take.” Kow Lung grinned at the casual ‘mention of the god of the Tibetan sacrifice and licked his lips. The next minute they were rushed. Very quietly the rush was made, but as the first man came round the rocks Oakes swung at him. No other swing COMicdoo S CO@