Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

BROTHERS 0’ waited, she was aware of the glances of the women on either side. They were looking at her curiously, flinging to and fro behind her snatches of impudent gossip. Someone gripped her elbow and pulled her round. Dully she was aware that a dark object lay on the ground beside her. she looked down. The clothing had been half torn off by the rocks. The hair was matted over the face. From the ragged hole in the forehead blood still trickled. She knelt in the pool of water at his side. Gently she drew the clotted locks from off the face, and with a strip of her underskirt started to\wash away the blood. So busy was she that the ominous silence round about made no impression. And it was the old woman. who first found her senses. “°>Tis not himself!’’ she poened that foul fiend—” “‘ Darrance!” screamed the eirl, reeling back. ‘‘ Where—” A roar of laughter shook the crowd. “¢ Aye—Darrance it is,” croaked Starling, c6 "Tis thrusting his yellow grin into her face. “A great surprise, eh, not? How do you think—” “You know!”’ zeit the girl. ‘“ What do you all mean? Where is my husband? Does anybody know?” ‘“ Anybody?” rasped out the little man. “Look there!” Parting somewhere, thé crowd pushed him forward. He was wet, weary, tattered, but unharmed. With a little run his wife thrust aside the hands that tried to stop her, and threw herself into his arms. “Larry!” she implored, “ what is it? What about’ Darrance? Why are they holding you? Why did they laugh?” Eastrup put his arm about her. 4c They—”’ “What? Why?” mimicked Starling, pushing between them. “‘ Because he’s a murderer, your precious man, that’s why.” {* A lie! What do you mean?” _ He gestured at the figure on the ground. ‘‘ Jake here, had his life threatened, sum- mat a month back. Enough of us heered what passed from your man-to him. Last night he went out for a little, never showed up again. Your man was out, too; several SPINKLE’S CHIMNEY. held on to him. Now—”’ Starling. 601 on us will swear to that. Indurin’ of the night, comes a yell. Somebody knifed, no less. Just before dawn, Eastrup shows up, safe and sound, storm or none. Jake bein’ gone, we havin’ heered the cry an’ knowin’ the trouble there was stewin’ some of us He raised _ his voice. ‘‘ What say, friends—proof enough?” A murmur, swelling to a roar, welled up from the group before him, and ran round the circle. Starling turned to the woman. ‘Ye see—jedged by his peers?’”’ ‘“ Judged!”” she screamed. “ That’s no judgment! It’s conspiracy! You have plotted it! You all hate him because he has brains and you have not! I'll have you hung if you don’t let him go! You don’t dare go on with it! The court will—” “Court?” gibed the man savagely, sweep- ing his arm about. “‘ Here’s the court, woman. We’re all the jury. Ye heered the sentence.”’ “Sentence! Without a chance! My man fights fair! If Darrance was killed it wasn’t he that did it. The man might have fallen off the cliff! It might be a hundred things!” “It might be, but it wa’n’t,” snapped “The case is done, an’ judgment passed. If ye try to interfere—” ‘‘ What are you going to do to-him?”’ ‘“'Ye’ve heered how they punish murder- ers, aint ye?” he leered back. ‘‘ West Cove aint up to date as some, but we mauaged to find a rope—”’ _ There was an interruption. Old woman McGann, dragging behind her the _half- witted boy, had pushed into the circle and confronted Starling. : “'God’s curse on your black soul!’ she shrilled. ‘‘ Many the rough years I have lived at home and here, and hard deeds wit- nessed, but sorra the day I see cowards butcher a man without a dog’s chance be- cause he is their better! Answer me one question, Tom Starling, before you call your murderers, as you will lie some day in the damp ground with your flesh rotten on your bones: Do ye seek the truth of this thing truly, or is it his death ye are set on, and no better than wolves, at all?” The man fell back a step. mM (C(O) DOOK