The Argosy, April 1916 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

182 “Tt was Jake Haas and Sailor Pete and a lot of blacks—and they have rifles.” ‘Rifles!’ .The word sounded like a shot from the captain’s throat. He let the boy sink suddenly to the floor. Seeing Ransom dart away, Neville leaped after him, catching the giant when he was within three feet of the door. “You yellow hound!” he roared, and the fury in his voice rang awesomely from the high roof of the room. “So this is the ruse behind your ten-thousand-dollar story?”’ “T didn’t know! I didn’t know!” Ran- _som cried. “You lie! You lie!” the captain yelled, dragging him back to the center of the hall. “Rot you, screamed. Swinging round in tigerish rage, he caught Captain Neville with his mighty hand at his throat. “T won’t hit an old man like you,” he went on. The enormous: yellow fingers closed more tightly with each word on the captain’s throat. ‘‘No; I can’t do that.” The captain’s head jerked convulsively and then fell back limp. A thin stream of red trickled from his white lips to his white beard. His eyes were wild and looked like polished glass. “But this here is all right and proper.” So saying, Ransom thrust the captain against the billiard-table. The spare, erect frame of Horace Rem- yngton Neville crumpled as if it were so much card-board. The white head with its blood-stained beard knocked against the green baize with a dull sound. The legs of the human shape dangled uselessly, while the pointed toes of the patent-leather pumps, as they swung back and forth, scraped the floor once, missed once, alternately, with a clock-like move- ment. The overseer’s hands flew up and his little eyes popped in their sockets as he saw the captain’s lids fall shut. “TI didn’t mean to do it so quick—T tell you, I didn’t!”’ Ransom muttered. “Blast you! I was jess a-squeezin’ you somewhat, but not to die.” Captain Neville’s right arm rose slowly. Ransom watched it, fascinated. The arm dropped like lead. The fingers were moving in weak, convulsive effort. en captain’s head rolled over on the side. I don’t lie!” Ransom THE ARGOSY. “T knew you was a-makin’ game,” Ran- som shrilled gleefully, the lust of murder in his parched throat and itching in his trem- bling fingers. His forearms rose swiftly until his hands, pendent in midair above the prostrate fig- ure on the table, showed like the talons of a bird of prey. Swiftly they were descending for the cap- tain’s throat as Ransom said: “But this time it’s right-o and farewell, my hearty—and may—”’ A snapping, crashing noise and a queer sharp pain in his side! Ransom’s quick ear and eye followed the sound. On the curved stairway Michael Sands crouched behind a rifle. It flashed through Ransom’s brain in- consequently that there was smoke coming from the barrel of that gun—and he fell dead on the billiard-table across the right arm of Captain Neville. His long legs unbalanced the trunk of his body. It rolled half-way over and tum- bled to the floor, face down, making a noise terrible and loud. Thus the lock snapped on the secret of Stephen Weir’s presence on Big Twin Isl- and in the breast of the one man who held that secret. ‘These dead! These dead! They is always a-followin’ me!” Jolly George moaned, hugging his shattered mandolin to his breast and gazing spellbound from the body of Ransom to the inert form of Cap- tain Neville, white and still, under the lights against the glowing green of the billiard- cloth. ‘Always, always followin’ me!” he re- peated mournfully. Michael Sands and Oscar Molle, both armed with rifles and revolvers, came run- ning to the captain. Of a sudden Jolly George burst into a series of childlike screams that echoed in the hall long after he had fled from it, leaving the door yawning wide. Their rifles were laid on ‘the table, the revolvers jammed in their pockets. Michael Sands lifted the captain as if he were the weight of a baby and shifted him on to the floor. He muttered a few words to Oscar, naming the items the other was to fetch from the medicine-closet. “Quick! Quick!” Michael enjoined. Oscar started on a run for the stairs while Michael tore off the captain’s collar and opened his shirt to the waist. MICLOOOK C@