The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

; BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW. The sergeant was away inspecting relief, but the ‘sentry advised that Buzzy wait. So the little boy sat on the parapet, dangled his legs over the black moat, and watched a lizzard crawl across the lichened face of the glacis. Presently a grinning, tongue-lolling dog came up and wagged a friendly tail at Buzzy, who climbed down with alacrity to perfect so promising an acquaintance. He picked up a little stick, and the dog raised expectant ears, inviting him to toss it, which he did. The pup re- trieved it, but curveted and squirmed just out of reach, and finally squatted in the dust as though unaware of Buzzy’s presence, masticate the stick. ‘Upon the boy’s approach the dog contorted himself most_ enticingly; but Buzzy got the stick and threw it again. This time it went through the gate, and both Buzzy and the pup raced for it. Now, had Buzzy -walked through that gate, the sentry would have halted him. But he and the dog had been playing about the gate for ten min- utes, and the sentry was thinking about a girl who worked in a candy-store in Sansome Street, San Francisco, any- way Fast outside the portcullis an enticing foot-path winds down through a bam- boo thicket along the moat. It was cool in the black shade, and the whole outer city was tabu, and therefore thick with adventure. In the dark heart of the bamboo thicket Buzzy came upon Hira Lahl, Datu Mabuktil, and Pangan Mandi reclining in silken splendor, their wavy krises, their wicked barongs, their slithering kampilans on the grass beside them. They were chewing betel-nut paste and regarding the flecks of blue sky over their grass-pillowed heads. Like three automatons worked with a single string, they bent at the middle and sat up, regarding the bare-legged, sandaled ‘of, bird-shot at close range. and proceeded to. ‘to their own on the grass. sabey Jolly Roger? Ketch and Davy Jones?” 655 small boy who stood sturdily watching them. Hira Lahl had brass earrings, and his face was so pock-marked as to seem to have at some time received a charge Datu Mabuktil is a greasy old scoundrel, and looks the part. One of the eyes of Pangan Mandi had been ruined by the slash of a barong, whose scar still puckered up the right side of his face in a hideous leer. Their skins were of the color of an old shoe and of the same texture. Taken together, they made the most villainous-looking trio to be seen in a voyage from Borneo to Batan; but Buzzy hailed them cheerily. “ Belay there!” he said, and the three looked stupidly up. “ Didn’t you never pirate none?” Hira Lahl drew his thick lips back from his stained teeth; but— “ Enh - henh — enh - henh,” grunted Pangan Mandi. “ No sabey.” “Si, sabey,” insisted Buzzy, and showed them his cutlases and pointed Ruefully he compared his coarse tattooing to the pale designs that fairly covered them. “You sabey, piecee eight? You You sabey Jack They seemed to be scarcely listening, but they began whispering excitedly enough. “You Black Dog,” said Buzzy, in- dicating his fancy; “ you Billy Bones— Old Pew; and me Long John Silver.” “Blah-Daw,” — grunted Pangan Mandi in the soft, mealy Malay into- nation —“’Llee Boh— Oth Pfuh—” and they whispered together again. “ Stow that whisperin’ between decks,” ordered Buzzy; “and now,” said he, “we'll go and we'll scuttle a ship. fe Tt is the son of the captain pig,” exulted Mabuktil, “’Zllu hu akbar!” “ Ser-r-r-achetty — scr-r-r-ratch—” went Fancher’s pen across the official letter-paper, and from its point ran COMicdoo S CO@