The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

564 Carried it off and hid it, you know, so that it couldn’t be looted. It was while the priest was carrying off the box that the Russian soldier caught him and took it, and then dropped it, and La- valle picked it up. “ There was a lot of stuff looted in Peking that summer. You know the story of the sack. Even your Ameri- can troops did not come out with per- fectly clean hands, I have heard, al- though they were by far the best of all. “The stuff that Lavalle poured out on my table that night fairly made me sick. “*Tt is ours, Hemingway — ours to divide. You and More and I played the game together while he lived, and we will play it fairly to the end, if the good God pleases.’ “Tt was more than decent of the little chap, for I had no possible claim on his share, though we had divided, share and share alike. “«* We will have to hide it somewhere till we get a chance to carry it away,’ ” he said. “‘ To carry it on our persons would be to tempt Fortune too much. She is a fickle jade—’”’ “So we hid it—’ He lapsed into silence and poured himself another drink. “Well,” said Oakes sharply, “ go on!” “ Lavalle was killed three days later by a Boxer hatchet man, and I got en- teric fever and was sent down to the coast. I have never been able to get back, though I have tried a score of times. “T am broke. I will be perfectly frank with you. I always am broke, and have never been able to raise enough to get to Peking. My family sees to that,”’ he went on bitterly, “ and my funds are always just enough to pay my bills here, but not to get away. “T am tired of being a remittance man. J want to make up for a part of the past at least. - I have heard that your firm has the contract for building a railroad for the imperial Japanese government in Korea. If you will give “loot! THE ARGOSY. me a job and take me with you, I will go to Peking and get these stones—this And we will divide the spoils. It is a matter of about sixty thousand pounds, I should say. Will you stake me—I mean, take me? ” “Are you quite certain that you know where it was buried? ” For answer, Hemingway grinned affably at him and pulled from his pocket a square wooden box, which he placed upon the table. “This is the box,” he said slowly, as he turned the wooden box upside down upon the table, disclosing to the won- dering gaze of the American engineer a silver box, upon which his eyes fast- ened eagerly. It was an oblong box of silver that was very disfigured and black with age and disuse, possibly an inch and a half in depth. The top was studded with a tiny turquoise flower in each corner, and the center of the lid was nearly entirely covered with the raised figure of a headless fish. Many dents upon the top and along the edges of the box showed that it had not received the best of treatment. It was about four inches long by about two and a half inches in width. Oakes promptly opened it, and when he examined the inside he found that it was scarred by a series of curious, almost undecipherable marks, like scratches, which he could hardly see without the aid of a transit-glass. “We took the stones from the box and put them in an old shot-bag. It did not take up so much room. Later we hid the bag,” explained Heming- way. “We hid it in the very best place that we could think of. We dis- placed a stone in the wall of the waz ch’-eng, where no one surely would think of looking for it—the Outer City, you know — and we put the bag con- taining the stones in the earth behind it, and I think they will stay there till the Judgment Day, unless I go to get them, now that Lavalle is dead—”’ “And Lavalle died in Peking three days later, you say?” said Oakes soft- COMicdoo S CO@