Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

DIRTY WEATHER. “ He said his point was just this: That the consigners had paid a large sum entirely of their own accord, ’way and above the price the owners had asked, just to make sure that the greatest, the most extreme care would be exercised in all handling and stowing of the box. “‘T know enough about Mongolians my- self to realize that to open the coffin and examine the corpse would be about the last word, the last Chinese word, in desecration. Our lives wouldn’t be: worth a plugged nickel if the tong, or whatever it is, found out about it. They’d snap us off like that, to avenge the stain on their honor. “As I say, all that part of it didn’t bother me then. Why should it have? Why on earth should I—should any one—want to go prying about a cotfin? The idea is dis- tasteful under any circumstances. I did in- sist, however, on the fact that it was a coffin being concealed. “Vou know how superstitious most crews are about carrying dead ones aboard, all the absurd fancies and troubles that come from it when the fact is known. That is why I had the outer box marked ‘ Broken. Machinery,’ and saw to the stowing of it myself. They must have paid the owners a whopping price from all the hammering on me that White did about it. If we do open it up I’m liable to be flayed at both ends. Of course I’m going to. There isn’t any other reasonable way out of it, is there? Of course, the full responsibility for come it will rest with me.’ ‘“There’s nothing else to do. No, sir, there’s nothing else to do,” Rutledge said. “ There’s deviltry at the bottom of it, things the owners know nothing at all about. If this Chink’s so all-blamed im- portant why did they ship him on a tramp like us, and not on one of the flash liners? What’s the reason for that?” ‘‘ There is no reason for anything that I can see, Mr. Rutledge, no reason at all. All we have to go by is the slip of paper you lost, the dirk—there was something else—”? “ That hand I saw, sir, with the scar?” “Ves, but not that— Something— Of course! Here, Sparks, take this and see what you can make out of it while we are 181 down below.”’ He handed Sparks the paper with the cipher message on it that had been copied from the blinking lights. “‘ Stay here in this room. While you’re working on it you’d better lock the door and draw the curtains across the ports. Got a gun?” “No, sir.” “I’ve given mine to Mr. MacDonald. Well, you won’t need one with the door locked.” He stood up. “ Now then, Mr. Rutledge, you and Mr. Hopper and I will go down into number three hold and—do what we have to do.” CHAPTER IX. THE BOX IS OPENED. HAT,” Hendriks stated, box.” He played the light from his elec- tric torch over the side facing them. Rut- ledge and Hopper stared at the ordimary- enough-looking packing case. The inten- sity of Rutledge’s convictions about its “‘ in- nards ” transformed its rough boarding of pine into something inexplicably mysteri- ous, a bit terrifying to him. ‘“* Look out below!” Harris’s voice, feeble at best, came down to them, standing there between decks, as if from immense distances; as something related to the stars, now brilliantly studding the rectangular patch of black velvet sky “is the ’ framed by the open hatch above; as some- thing more remote and less real than the cargo light cluster he was lowering away to them from above—a cluster resembling three large, vivacious fireflies, twirling and descending down upon them to disperse the crowding darknesses that were retreating so sullenly to vague recesses of the hold be- fore its approach. “Make fast above!” Hendriks called, as the lights reached a spot favorable to their operations. “ All fast, sir.” Hiarris’s voice lost itself in immeasurable silences. “Now, then, we can see to work,” said Hendriks. “Hadn’t we best look around first, sir?” Rutledge asked, glancing at the obscure places, at the shadows and the things that comicboooks C©