text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/68

 verse. The first verse is: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” The second verse: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.” The third: “Arise, ye righteous, and occupy yourselves with the Torah, that your reward may be abundant in the world hereafter.” The fourth: “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord!” The fifth: “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?” The sixth: “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.” And the seventh verse sung by the cock runs: “It is time to work for the Lord, for they have made void Thy law.”

The song of the vulture is: “I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase as they have increased”—the same verse with which the bird will in time to come announce the advent of the Messiah, the only difference being, that when he heralds the Messiah he will sit upon the ground and sing his verse, while at all other times he is seated elsewhere when he sings it.

Nor do the other animals praise God less than the birds. Even the beasts of prey give forth adoration. The lion says: “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man; He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; He shall cry, yea, He shall shout aloud; He shall do mightily against his enemies.” And the fox exhorts unto justice with the words: “Woe unto him


text: Coming of Age in Samoa/Chapter 8

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Coming of Age in Samoa/Chapter 8


text:
Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/69

 that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; that useth his neighbor’s service without wages, and giveth him not his hire.”

Yea, the dumb fishes know how to proclaim the praise of their Lord. “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters,” they say, “the God of glory thundereth, even the Lord upon many waters”; while the frog exclaims, “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever!”

Contemptible though they are, even the reptiles give praise unto their Creator. The mouse extols God with the words: “Howbeit Thou art just in all that is come upon me; for Thou hast dealt truly, but I have done wickedly.” And the cat sings: “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”


text: Page:Olive Custance - Opals.djvu/23

title: Page:Olive Custance - Opals.djvu/23


text: Page:Olive Custance - Opals.djvu/24

title: Page:Olive Custance - Opals.djvu/24


text: Opals (Custance)/Delight

title: Opals (Custance)/Delight


text:
Page:West African Studies.djvu/305

 Jobson's inquiries regarding this "golden trade" informed him that the great demand for salt in the Gambia trade arose from the desire for it among the Arabiks of Barbary; that the natives themselves only consumed a small percentage of this import, trading away the main to those Arabiks in the hinterland, who in their turn traded it for gold to Tombak, where the demand for it was great, because that city, although possessing all manner of other riches and commodities, lacked salt, so that the Arabiks did a good trade therein. Jobson was also informed that the Arabiks had, as well as the market for salt at Timbuctoo, a market for it with a strange people who would not be seen, and who lived not far from Yaze; that the salt was carried to them, and in exchange they gave gold. Asking a native merchant, who was engaged in this trade, why they would not be seen, he made a sign to his lips, but would say no more. Jobson, however, learnt from other sources that the reason these negroes buy salt from the tawny Moors is because of the thickness of their lips, which hang down upon their breasts, and, being raw, would putrefy if they did not take salt, a thing their country does not afford, so that they must traffic for it with the Moors. The manner they employ, according to Jobson, is this: the Moors on a fixed day bring their goods to a place assigned, where there are certain houses appointed for them; herein they deposit their commodities, and, laying their salt and other goods in parcels or heaps separately, depart for a whole day, during which time their customers come, and to each parcel of goods lay down a proportion of gold as they value it, and leave both together. The merchants then return, and as they like the bargain take the gold and leave their wares, or if they think the price

title: Page:West African Studies.djvu/305


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Introduction

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Introduction


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Actor-Soldier

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Actor-Soldier


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Approach

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Approach


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Aspiration

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Aspiration


text:
Talk:The Tucandeira

ONCERNING his story in this issue a word from Arthur O. Friel:

Brooklyn. The test of the tucandeira which the American hero of this tale has to undergo is quite wide-spread among the tribes of the southern rivers tributary to the Amazon. Its details differ with different tribes, but its essentials are the same—the proving of manhood by enduring the torments of these huge ants, which have been kept for a time in fiber cylinders or hollow palm-logs, through which the victim has to pass his arms. Sometimes he also has to go to each hut and do a sort of clog-dance while being bitten, but I have dispensed with that in this instance as being unnecessary and also detracting somewhat from the dignity of the white man.—.

title: Talk:The Tucandeira


text:
Plundered Cargo/Chapter 17

PIKE HORN pondered the girl's story of double dealing; of barratry cunningly contrived and a murder done in callous spirit. He tried to match this story with the jig-saw puzzle his own hectic experiences had partially revealed. Pieces overlapped. No sort of conformity could be plotted.

The girl had lived for lonely weeks with her preoccupation of revenge. It was based upon facts the logic of which seemed to her unshakable. Horn on the other hand had the advantage of an open mind. Where his sketchy story of shanghai work and a stormy voyage down to this desolate spot, as shouted at a suspicious Karelia, had left little impress upon the girl, her narrative in turn came to Spike as a complement to a half-solved riddle. He attacked the crux boldly.

“Looky here, Karelia: You say this Hoskin fellah told you he'd report the wreck of the Sierra Park to the owners when he reached that Guaymas place over on the mainland. S'pose ole Storrs was in 'Frisco when that report came through. Any way he could find out that the Sierra Park had been piled up on Sabina Island?”

“Why, the report of the wreck would be posted at the Marine Exchange,” she answered. “But Hoskin said, 'Cap'n Judah's orders,' when my father caught him off course and flooding the cargo hold. Storrs knew, of course”

“All right,” Spike interrupted. “But s'pose, just for the sake of argument, Storrs was playing fair with your father and figured Cap'n Lofgren was goin' to land that cotton at this Magdalena Bay place; he'd know, wouldn't he, that he'd been double-crossed the minute he read that Marine Exchange report about the Sierra Park bein' wrecked on Sabina Island?”

“But Hoskin said—” The man checked her with an impatient shake of the head as he drove home his argument:

“Remember what ole Storrs said this mornin' when you piled over the rail and drilled a hole through his cap? 'I give you my word,' he said, 'I thought your father had sold me out—thought I'd have to fight Skipper Lofgren for what lies under this deck.' “Now what do you make of that?” Spike challenged.

“A lie!” the girl flamed. “A lie—just like that other one when he said he'd never seen me before.” Spike was dogged.

“Let's figure it my way an' see how it works out. Say that Storrs sees your father take the Sierra Park through the Golden Gate and is counting on his landing the Chinese owners' salted cotton at Magdalena Bay. He's all ready with his schooner, the Lonney Lee, to slip down there at an agreed time.

“Then he reads the report of the Sierra Park being abandoned on Sabina Island. Maybe that same night four plug-uglies, includin' your li'l friend Spike Horn, breeze up to the lonely house in the cabbage fields where Cap Storrs is hiding handy to his schooner. He and his gang jump those four. Storrs finds on one of 'em—that's me—a bankbook with a credit for $100,000 dated just two days back.

“'So,' says he, 'you're the boys who hired Cap Lofgren to double-cross me; or you're hired by him to keep me from goin' down to that Sabina Island place an' gettin' my rightful share of the opium.' Words to that effect. So he shanghaies us aboard the Lonney Lee, an' thinks he's got the game in his own hands—thinks he'll get that opium before Cap Lofgren can get back from Guaymas to lift it.

“Doesn't that make sense?” he finished triumphantly.

“Just as sensible to believe Storrs and Hoskin had it planned to kill my father before ever the Sierra Park left the Golden Gate,” the girl stubbornly defended. “Hoskin was Storrs' man. He would follow orders. Storrs would then get all the opium instead of having to divide it.”

“Why did Storrs bring rifles down with him, then?” Horn wanted to know. “Why did he tell Doc Chitterly he'd have to fight somebody at the end of the voyage if he had everything cut and dried with his man Hoskin?”

Horn banged a fist into a horny palm. “I tell you, girl, it's plain as the hands on a clock. This fellah Hoskin's the main wolf—the prime double-crosser. Ole Cap Storrs has got his number by this time, just like I have.”

Karelia Lofgren sat silent for a long time, revolving the weight of the man's arguments. Finally:

“I'll go out and ask Cap'n Storrs for the truth,” she said. Horn gave her a delighted grin.

“Now you're tootin'. I'll go along for company.”

She looked up to where the first pyrotechnical set piece of the sunset was shooting scarlet flares fanwise to the zenith, “Tomorrow, then, Mate. And thank you,” she said.

title: Plundered Cargo/Chapter 17


text:
Plundered Cargo/Chapter 18

PIKE had not taken a dozen oar strokes from the shore on his return to the Lonney Lee when a sound from the stranded steamer caused him to give a quick look over-shoulder. It was the chut-chut-chut of a gasoline winch there aboard the Sierra Park. A cargo boom hitched to the foremast lifted and swung outward. Spike saw a huge dripping bundle lifted high and then lowered to the steamer rail. Hands were busy with lashing ropes. The bundle tipped and splashed into the sea.

Then a horrid sight. Water was lashed to sudden foam when the boom's burden dropped. Snouts were pushed up. The object spilled from above was worried into fragments, and each went darting off under hidden tow.

A chill stirred Spike's back hair. How near he himself had been to that loathsome partition! Those were hides the sharks were worrying. Captain Storrs, wounded as he was, evidently was losing no time getting down to those precious cotton bales.

Doctor Chitterly's flowing beard hung over the Lonney Lee's rail as a beacon when Horn drew alongside. Anxiety was written large on the worthy physician's features.

“Horn!” he called before Spike was close enough to throw him his painter. “Hear that infernal racket?”

Spike had heard the witch notes of a home-made flute almost from the moment he pushed out from the shore. Now a particularly rasping run of high notes smote his ears. Doctor Chitterly gave him a nervous grasp of the hand as he came aboard.

“Horn, I'm afraid were in for it with that fellow Angelo. He's been doing this ever since you went ashore—making squeaks on that piece of broom stick. When I protested he just patted something in his pocket and grinned shockingly. That rat poison, maybe that's what he patted. I—um—well, I tell you frankly, Horn, I think he's clean daft and I'm afraid of him.”

Spike strode down the deck to where little Angelo rocked on a tub, home-made flute to lips and eyes closed in an ecstasy. One opened at the sound of approaching footfalls. It was all white, that staring basilisk eye. It told Spike he had to deal with something abnormal.

“Here! 'Nough's a-plenty, kid.” This soothingly. “Time to eat. Get busy with the grub.” Angelo continued to blow, his single opened eye enormously staring. Spike tried a new tack. “Tomorrow, you and I'll go over there together.” He jerked his head toward the hulk. “You know what's over there.”

Angelo took his lips away from the flute's vent. “Diamonds,” he said and caught up his wild air again.

“For you and me—eh?” Spike whispered this with an elaborate show of secrecy. The flighty spirit of the flute player rose to the bait. Both eyes fixed themselves upon Spike. Lips under the glossy black. mustache curled upward in a sly grin. “One time Capitan he tell-a me boil two pot coffee—one weeth cigar for you? Remember heem: how I change-a da pot?

“Tonight two pot coffee; one for you an' me—one for” The black head jerked significantly toward the quarterdeck where the doctor and the Iron Man were. A hand stole into an inside pocket of the little cook's jacket and half withdrew to show the neck of a bottle.

“For the rat ver' good. For men more better.” He winked.

Spike's hand shot out in a flash. But not quick enough. The flute player dropped the bottle of poison back into his pocket and struck out like a cat.

Spike's body launched itself against his; he was knocked off his tub. Together they rolled on the deck, Angelo screaming mad Italian curses. His body was like a watch-spring in its release of furious energy. Hardly had Spike imprisoned thin wrists when a kick from behind landed squarely on the base of his skull, stunning him. He fought to master the swooning sickness—fought and slowly conquered.

Teeth were buried in Spike's left wrist. A worrying sound issued from the Italian's throat. Grimly Spike lifted his arm, and with it the clinging head. He banged the head upon the deck with a thud—again—again. Chitterly and the Iron Man had come running at first sound of struggle.

“Get it—in his pocket!” Spike grunted. The Iron Man knelt to rummage where a nod of Spike's head indicated. Just then with a gurgle and horrid turning back of eyes little Angelo passed into epilepsy.

A bottle which was ver' good for rats went spinning overboard.

The mad flute player died that night after many hours' suffering of a character to wrench the nerves of the three survivors.

And all through those dark hours sounded the chut-chutter of the gasoline winch aboard the Sierra Park, where the indomitable Judah Storrs was driving yellow men to uncover treasure in the waterlogged hold.

title: Plundered Cargo/Chapter 18


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Audience

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Audience


text:
Plundered Cargo/Chapter 19

AWN of his second day in involuntary command of a beached hulk, and Captain Judah Storrs had himself carried by two Chinamen up to the aerie of the Sierra Park's high bridge—carried because a useless burning arm forbade his climbing the steep ladder unaided.

Here was his aerie which he had occupied all the day before since, within an hour of their forced transfer from the Lonney Lee, he had put his crew of six yellow men to work in the stinking hold. Most of the night, too, for the matter of that; when dim oil lanterns in the hold gave light to the wretches clambering over and straining at the slimy hide bundles, with Hansen at the winch.

Captain Storrs chose the bridge for his aerie, prompted by two good reasons. One was that it gave him a view of the gulf behind the cove, a fine clear vista of miles of flat water stretching eastward in the direction of Guaymas and the other Mexican mainland ports. Second compelling factor lay in the circumstance that by locking the rear door to the wheelhouse Storrs had left but a single way of ascent to the bridge—by way of the steep ladder from the main deck below. Concealed under the cushion of his chair were two long bladed knives from the galley. Any head with a coiled queue pushing up the ladder to this lookout possessed by the captain would have to parry a knife stroke.

This morning of his renewed vigil, Judah Storrs was sorely ill, burning up with a fever which spread to all his members from the purple hole that had received Doctor Chitterly's rough surgical attention the day before. He had dosed himself with quinine discovered in a medicine chest in the late Skipper Lofgren's  cabin; but all the drug apparently availed was to set his brain pan in motion like the walls of a bellows, expanding and collapsing with waves of black blindness between. Yet an indomitable will, which seemed to be a force apart from his stricken body, drove from him like lightning to play over the bent backs of the Chinamen in the hold.

He would get that cotton on deck and break it out for the opium before!

Waxing dawn light found the wounded man on his high bridge forever turning his head to search the eastern horizon. He was looking for a sail or a plume of smoke there. That would be the signal of Hoskin's coming—Hoskin returning from Guaymas, after unexplained delay, to get the opium he had so tidily cached here in the dish cove of Sabina Island.

Let Hoskin come, and Captain Storrs would be helpless to prevent his taking what he wanted. Helpless! Without a weapon save two butcher knives concealed under a cushion. About as capable of resistance—so ran the bitter thought through the sick man's brain—as a rag doll with one arm torn off!

It was all clear to Storrs now. Karelia Lofgren's revealing words flung at him in the screech of a fury yesterday had uncovered the double dealing of that snake Hoskin. Captain Lofgren, true to his pact with Judah Storrs, had died when Hoskin determined to double-cross them both. And he, Judah Storrs, would have gone on a wild goose chase to Magdalena Bay—was, in truth, poised for that flight—had he not seen back in San Francisco at that last saving moment Hoskin's report of the abandonment of the Sierra Park, a wreck, at Sabina Island.

As for Spike Horn, Chitterly and the others, they were, after all, innocent of any guile. Just fools! One of them a dangerous fool.

I have stressed the presence of two knives under the cushion of Captain Storrs' perch on the bridge. Last slender props in a threatened moment of extremity. For those six Chinamen sweating and gagging in the hold lived only under the rule of fear. Let them once discover their master had no firearms to enforce his will upon them and they'd turn beasts. Judah Storrs knew this well enough. He was gambling on the thin chance the yellow men would remain blind to his helplessness.

Once their eyes were opened—well, he had those two butcher knives for the last epic moment.

Again the winch was cackling, and hides were feeding the sharks. Captain Judah's roving eye discovered unwonted activity aboard the Lonney Lee. He saw a long bundle with tarpaulin wrapping lowered into one of the boats alongside. His curiosity pricked him and he went back into the wheelhouse for a pair of binoculars. He ticked off aloud identity of the figures following down into that boat: the doctor—that dumb Iron Man—ah, Horn, worse luck! So it was the flute player they lowered away in wrappings. H-m-m! Might better have been that wolf pup Horn.

With a sort of ironic pleasure the crippled rake-hell on the Sierra Park's bridge followed with his glasses a pantomime on the beach. He saw Karelia Lofgren stride down from a long rock dike to join the group; saw two of the men scooping out sand with a fire shovel from the  schooner's galley. Then the doctor removed his great hat and turned his face up to the blinding new sun while the others bowed their heads.

“Oh, I'll bet he puts up a fancy prayer!” grumbled Judah Storrs. Just then came a hail from Hansen below.

“First bale o' cotton comin' oop, sir!”

Instantly the funeral ashore was blotted from the skipper's mind. He arose in his excitement and started for the ladder, then thought better of it.

“Break out that bale, Mr. Hansen, and see if you find anything in it.”

Storrs watched the Swede and a Chinaman attack with a crowbar the single band of strap iron remaining about the swollen bale. He saw several shaven yellow heads peep over the hatch coaming like the heads of curious rats. The man on the high bridge burned with impatience.

The iron strap snapped. A knife ripped open the burlap sacking, and leaves of soggy cotton fell outward like thick pages of a book. Hansen prodded and shredded the mass until all the deck under the cargo boom was a dirty white.

Suddenly he stooped and picked up a round iron box, such as might have been made by screwing together two boiler tube caps; a thing to span between thumb and little finger. Cackles of surprise from the watching Chinamen.

Hansen rooted out another box—another. Five in all.

“Bring those up to me,” Captain Storrs ordered. “And fetch a wrench from the engine room.”

He turned to bellow at the shaven polls lining the hatch coaming: “Back to work, you swine! Swing that tackle over! Lively now!”

Judah Storrs knew full well the seed of curiosity had been sown in fruitful soil and it would not be a matter of long before ugly cupidity would bloom.

Fifteen minutes later another misshapen bale oozed water on the deck. Under Captain Judah's chair high above five round tins had been piled: tins which had fitted neatly in their resistant containers and which were covered with red paper whereon gold ideographs glorified Heavenly-dream Compelling Flower Magic.

A prankish gust of wind caught one of these labels which had been loosened from a can by infiltration of water and whisked it out through the pipe rail before Captain Storrs' chair. The skipper saw it writhe and flutter like a wounded butterfly down onto the deck.

“Hansen!” he bawled to the Swede who was standing with a hand on the winch brake. The mate looked up dully.

“Grab that paper before” The gaudy label stirred like a sentient thing, took brief wing, balanced on the hatch coaming and then dropped into the black maw where six Chinamen clambered about in slime. Skipper Storrs groaned in agony of spirit.

“Now the lid's off!” he whispered.

So intent had he been upon what was going forward below him that Storrs did not see the Lonney Lee's yawl put back from the shore with the girl Karelia substituting for that passenger who had been left beneath a mound of sand on the beach. Nor did he see the small craft put off again from the schooner and head for the Sierra Park, Spike Horn at the oars and the girl with him.

Splash of oars jerked Storrs' gaze overside just as the yawl was coming up under the pendant falls of one of the port davits.

“Why, by the great!” The man on the bridge gazed open-mouthed. “That hell-cat of a Finn girl smells opium a mile away, huh!”

Karelia swarmed up the ropes and balanced herself easily on the steamer rail. Storrs saw the curl of her bare toes over the round of the wood; his eyes traveled upward and caught the glint of a revolver's chambers where they showed, with the butt, over her strap belt. Then his eyes met hers. A marvel: she gave him a vague half-smile.

Then came the burly figure of the man Storrs hated with a corroding hatred—for all that he might be innocent of any part in a plot to bilk anybody out of hidden opium. Storrs received his upward flung grin of salutation with a stony face.

Horn, too, wore a weapon under his belt, Storrs' very own, to recover which that moment the saturnine skipper would gladly risk his life. Just let him get his hands on that revolver and there'd be no doubt who was who aboard this blasted hulk!

One of the Chinamen was standing by the hatch when Karelia and Spike leaped to the deck. He made no sign of recognizing their presence but waited, slope-shouldered, hand out to steady the heavy block about to be lowered into the hold. Hansen, at the winch twenty feet away, had just thrown on the brake for lowering away when the two visitors started down the deck past the hatch.

It happened in a twinkling. The seemingly inert Oriental shot out one bare foot in Spike's path, and as he tripped a hand darted out to grasp his shirt and propel him over the coaming. Even as Horn pitched headlong into the gulf the revolver was twitched out from under his belt.

Karelia whirled and her hand went to her belt. A grinning yellow man pressed the barrel of the captured weapon against her breast. His free hand snatched out the revolver before her fingers could touch the butt.

“Nice Mis-see; be good,” the fellow crooned.

title: Plundered Cargo/Chapter 19


text:
Plundered Cargo/Chapter 20

OR an instant the onlookers caught in breathless astonishment were frozen in their poses: Karelia wide-eyed before the grinning yellow man who had disarmed her so neatly; Hansen at his winch, mouth agape; up on the high bridge Captain Judah half risen out of his chair.

Karelia's scream, which was like a battle cry of the ancient fen people, her ancestors, broke tension. She whirled away from the Chinaman and with a bound was at the side of the hatch looking down the shaft of yellow sunlight where it illumined a square of blackness below. There a block of cotton bales arose like an island from the midst of inky water ten feet below the deck level. A squirming mass of legs and heads writhed atop this pedestal.

“Mate!” she called, and jumped.

Spike Horn in his plunge down the hatch had been lucky. He struck, head and shoulders, on two bent backs of Chinamen stooping over the lashings of a bale about to be hoisted. His breath was jarred out of him but otherwise he was uninjured. Before he could recover from the double shock of his surprise and his fall five half naked bodies hurled themselves upon him. On his back and fighting furiously, Spike felt himself being forced along the rasping surface of burlap toward the edge of the square of bales lifting above the bilge; below that was water—and drowning.

Then Karelia's cry and the jar of her body as it plumped squarely upon the tangled knot of bodies covering his. Spike with a supreme effort made a wrestler's “bridge” which lifted the squirming mass. What with the surprise of Karelia's flying attack, holds om Spike were loosened. Now with the bowing of his back he managed to send two of his assailants slipping and clawing desperately to save themselves from dropping off the cotton island.

Spike, looking up under a smothering armpit, caught just a glimpse of a fighting fury. Karelia, on one knee, was striking out right and left with short arm jabs. Coolly. Craftily. Like any ring general, she landed her blows where they would have most telling effect and parried the clawing hands that reached for her throat. With every piston stroke of her arms the heavy cables of her hair leaped from her bosom as if enlivened with some fighting reflex.

Came a bawl in Cantonese down the hatch from the possessor of two precious revolvers on the deck. Instantly the five Chinamen on the cotton pillar ceased fighting and made for the iron ladder giving egress from the hold. They went up the rungs like frightened monkeys. Karelia, taken back by this sudden shift of tactics, sat back on propped hands and let them go unhindered. She was breathing hard.

Spike gave her a look of mingled awe and admiration. “Girl, you're a wonder!” he wheezed between labored breaths. “If you hadn't taken the high dive down here I'd've been a goner.”

“Come; we've got to get out of here and find out what all this means.” Karelia strode to the ladder and began mounting it. Spike was following when he saw the girl above him suddenly recoil. A yellow hand gripping a knife had swung a menacing arc just above her mounting head. A simian face was pushed over the coaming.

“Mo' bettah you no come topside.” Implication in that gibberish was sufficiently plain. After a second's indecision the two on the ladder accepted a situation they could not combat—swish of cold steel at unprotected throats—and they descended to the cotton.

There in the square of dazzling sunlight which made the rest of the hold all the more black by contrast the two exchanged sober looks.

“Somebody else's move—not ours!” was Spike's trenchant comment.

“Not hard to guess who that somebody is, Mate,” came bitterly from the girl. “You and I were great boobies to risk coming aboard here and stumbling into Cap'n Storrs' trap.”

Spike shook his head argumentatively. “Not so sure ole Storrs has a hand in this business, unless it's his game to get hold of our guns. They've been getting this cotton. You saw it spread all over the deck. Maybe if the Chinks've found out what's in these bales they've decided to count themselves in on the deal. An' they drew two fine aces when they saw them handy in our belts.

“Anyway,” he bravely appended, “we're not in bad for long. Over on the schooner the doc and the Iron Man—when they don't see us come back—well, they've got two rifles an' they'll come across to find out what for.”

Karelia had a reply on her lips when a harsh sound interrupted. It was a grinding and heavy dragging on the deck above; over that the thin whine of the winch. A shadow fell athwart their well of sunlight.

“The hatch cover!” Karelia gasped and bounded for the ladder. “They're shutting us in!”

Again that bared yellow arm and icicle glint of a knife at the ladder's top—a shaven poll and snail-like eye.

“Mo' bettah no come up.” The head darted back.

Something slammed down like the clapping on of a mausoleum's sealing plate. Darkness engulfed them.

Meanwhile there was interesting comedy-drama on the deck above the trapped twain.

When Captain Judah Storrs witnessed the lightning-quick transfer of power resident in two small contraptions of steel and vulcanized rubber his heart turned to water. Just by so much had he lost his last chance to possess a fortune in black gum; he with his two butcher knives opposed to six Chinamen possessing two revolvers. Last chance gone unless, desperate hope, he could out-think the Celestials; oppose guns with guile. The man's resourceful brain steeled itself for the encounter when he saw the five entombed Chinese hailed out of the hold by the sixth on deck who had turned the trick of possessing the weapons and eyed the six yellow rats standing with slant eyes turned up to the bridge,

Captain Storrs found his first inspiration when he witnessed the pantomime of the swinging knife played over Karelia's ascending head. “Mr, Hansen,” he bellowed, “hoist out your tackle and couple onto the hatch cover ready to lower away.”

The skipper was counting on the Chinamen's acquiescence in his move; it would appear he was playing their game when he ordered the sealing of the two invaders' prison. Nor did he misjudge the effect of his strategy. Two of the Chinamen jumped to couple the swinging block hook to the ring of the hatch cover. Hansen threw power into the winch. The steel framed cover dropped into place with a ringing clatter.

Then once more the mutinous yellow men clotted into a knot about the man with the two revolvers, their shifting little eyes turned up to the huddled body of Skipper Judah in his chair on the bridge. In the absence of any provocative move from him, initiative was slow to form with the men so long accustomed to bend their backs under authority. Their Number One man, he who had lifted the revolvers, consulted with his fellows in low tones.

Captain Storrs played a desperate card: “You there; bring those guns up here to me.”

Number One shot back a defiant grin. “No can do.”

The fetter of whisker about the master's mouth tightened in old time determination. He sternly repeated his order. For answer the Number One man passed one of the weapons to a fellow and together, ignoring Hansen at the winch, they walked down the deck to the foot of the ladder leading up the Storrs citadel.

“Stop right where you are!” The white man made a mendacious move of his left hand to an empty coat pocket. Number One grinned up at him out of tiny eye slits.

“No fool-ee me. I t'ink maybe-so levolvah you no hab got. I t'ink maybe-so mo' bettah we mak-ee chin-chin.”

Storrs temporized, though the soul of him was cold.

“What've we got to talk about—that crazy man and woman down in the hold?” he asked.

“We talk-ee opium mo' bettah. How much-ee opium go China-boy if he no shoot you?” Storrs tipped back his head in a laugh which cost him some pains to achieve.

“Ho-ho! So that's the game, eh? Suppose I say not a damn' bit of it? What then?”

Captain Judah's high hand seemed in a fair way of carrying through. Possessing initiative on their side and convinced through the white man's temporizing, so unusual a procedure for him, that force, the final argument, was in truth theirs, yet the yellow ruffians were baffled by the other's cool attitude of self-sureness. Sheer force of personality—call it brain power—gave Judah Storrs a weapon the Chinaman did not know how to fend.

Seeing their hesitancy, the man on the bridge pushed precarious advantage.

“Look here, you Mow-lows! What's all this talkee-talk about? You know yesterday Doctor fellow shot me here—” he pointed to his wounded shoulder—“and Horn fellow moved you all over this steamer side. Stole my schooner, Doctor fellow and Horn fellow did. No schooner, no get away—no get back to Frisco, eh? All right. Now we get Horn fellow down below. Got his gun—two guns. Got his boat. Why not go over to schooner and catch her when we can? Then when we catch schooner we'll talk about opium.”

The two armed Celestials blinked dully up to Captain Storrs as they digested his suggestion. Evidently it found weight with them, for they turned back up the deck for a conference with their fellows. For several minutes the white diplomat on the bridge heard the parroting of outlandish voices. He hardly dared breathe while the issue of his daring attempt at a digression hung in the balance. Finally Number One came back to the ladder foot.

“Chinaboy tink plitty good first catch-um schoonah.”

title: Plundered Cargo/Chapter 20


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Autumn

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Autumn


text:
Plundered Cargo/Chapter 21

HEN Captain Judah ordered the hatch cover dropped he thought he had effectively removed Karelia Lofgren and the fiery Spike Horn from a situation quite delicate enough without being complicated by their intervention. But just there lay a fatal flaw in his reasoning.

So while the parleys between the grizzled Machiavelli on the bridge and the armed spokesmen of the Celestials progressed a capricious Fate moved to drive at the last slender prop of Judah Storrs' security.

When they found themselves in Egyptian darkness and with the dank atmosphere of the hold tightening an unseen bandage about their throats, the man and the girl sat stunned on their island of cotton. Wordless. Only their hands crept gropingly out, like hands of children on dark stairs, to meet and join in a grip of mutual heartening. Their plunge into the abyss, the writhing struggle with ape-like creatures, the clangor of doom in that falling hatch cover: all these flickers of action, confused, inchoate, made the ensuing darkness and silence the more terrible by contrast.

Karelia spoke first. “It's up to us, Mate. We can't expect any favors from Cap'n Storrs.”

“Who wants any?” was Spike's valiant sally against the deadening depression he felt creeping around his heart. “I've coppered every ace ole Storrs has played so far. Guess I can do it again.”

And far back in some obscure recess of his brain the beginnings of a thought pushed up like the swelling of a germinating seed. Hardly a thought, perhaps; rather that vague and pestiferous feeling that an idea is there ready to be released if only will power concentrate upon it. Something to do with light; there should be light somewhere in this water-logged abyss of blackness.

“Glory!” The exclamation came explosively. “The hole in the deck—you know: where the deck was blown through, like Storrs said yesterday when he an' me rowed over to have a look at this wreck. Look, girl! Look hard all round. There must be a hole where light shines through.”

They strained their eyes to pierce the darkness which was like a muffling mass of wool under which they sat buried. No points for orientation existed. They could not know where bow and stern lay; which way was longitude in the steel vault entombing them. Finally the girl's hand tightened over his.

“Look! Up there!” She lifted his arm to point direction. “Just a spot of half-dark—not so black as the rest.”

Spike concentrated all his will to see. Yes, there was a place where the blackness thinned ever so slightly. Almost he could call it light. Resolution was formed instantly.

“I'm goin' to take a swim, or walk, up there and have a look-see.”

“Oh, Mate!” for just a split second the heart of her quailed before the hazard of such adventure. Then, “Go and good luck,” she said.

Spike slipped off his shoes and gave her hand a squeeze for farewell. “You keep saying, 'Here I am, Spike,' so's I can find my way back. Anyway, it'll help just to hear you say it.”

He felt his way to the edge of the island of bales and let himself drop. His feet touched a submerged foundation of burlap below his depth and he came up swimming. Two strokes and he struck a dank wall from which soggy hanks of cotton came away in his exploring grip.

“Here I am, Mate,” came low reassurance from the blackness behind him.

Now he could not see the thin patch in the blanket of dark which was his goal. He could see nothing. Only he felt a wall of slimy burlap, smooth, without even handholds. His feet were treading water. With every agitation of his legs bubbles of foul smelling gas arose to burst about him.

Hand over hand, from right to left, he pulled himself along the unseen wall. His thrashing feet struck a submerged ledge and he was able to lift head and shoulders out of water. The ledge broadened and ascended at a cant, indicating a submerged bale dislodged and forced upward until, as he crawled, nearly the whole of him was free of the slime.

“Here I am, Mate,” tolled the voice far—so far—back in limbo.

Now he saw his objective plainly; even the vague shoulders of stacked cargo were suggested by the filtered light. But his way was no longer over cotton. Instead, slimy bundles of hides which stank abominably, The bundles were like so many corpses, slick and with the feel of putrescence about them. They rolled sluggishly when he put his weight upon them, threatened to topple over on his head.

Now in water to his knees, he crawled until he was directly below the hole in the deck, perhaps ten feet over his head as he knelt. Light through it was dimmed where burlap from one of the bales opened on deck had dropped over the hole to screen it.

There was no way he could lift his head through the jagged aperture even if he had dared. But with two there, one giving the other a back up, it could be done.

Spike began retracing his perilous trail. From hide bundles to cotton and from cotton to water. Furiously he strove to print unseeable landmarks on his mind; to point a chart by this handhold and that crevice. Ever and again a strong voice out of the dark served to guide him.

At last he pulled himself up on the island. He felt a hand wavering through the dark. In his exultation he let his own dripping hand travel up Karelia's arm to the shoulder, to the neck. He laid his palm on a smooth cheek with a light touch of caress.

“Karelia girl, you can make it. But it's mighty tough. Together we can”

Spike felt a strong arm circle his neck, felt his head drawn over. Lips brushed his cheek, then rested for one delirious instant upon his lips.

“I thought—I was afraid you'd not come back,” she whispered.

Ten minutes later one on the deck of the Sierra Park might have seen a breadth of burlap strewn there stir strangely, then very slowly lift. A pair of black eyes under streaming wisps of hair appeared under the burlap cowl. They swept the length of the deck. Deserted. Not the figure of a man in sight.

Karelia lifted herself through the hole which the burlap had covered, knelt and gave a hand to Spike below. Together they stood blinking in blinding sunlight. The prodigy of an untenanted hulk was not easily realized by two who had set themselves to meet the hazard of a rush by six angry Chinamen.

A shot!

They bounded to the rail. There on the flat water was a crowded yaw! midway between the hulk and the Lonney Lee. A puff of smoke was just shredding away from the rail midway of the schooner's shoreward side. The watchers on the Sierra Park could distinguish the black hat of old Doctor Chitterly cocked behind the slender spear of steel jutting out from his shoulder.

Even as they looked the doctor's rifle jetted smoke again and a tiny spout of spray sprang up from the yawl's waterline. A figure arose in the yawl and pointed a finger at the rifleman aboard the schooner. The finger launched a thin smoke pencil.

An idea burst in Spike's brain with the explosiveness of a shrapnel shell. He whirled upon the girl.

“The ole doc—too tender hearted—won't shoot to kill! We've gotta get Storrs back here. Where do they keep the kerosene—paint—any kind of oil that'll burn?”

Karelia's eyes questioned him, but already he had started on a run down the deck toward the quarters behind the bridge. The girl left a second trail of water where she followed.

“Fire!” the man called over his shoulder. “Start a fire anywhere! What do we care what burns? Storrs'll come rar'in' back here when he sees smoke!”

“But we—what will happen when”

“I've got all that arranged,” was the confident assurance as Horn turned into the paint closet Karelia designated. “Go to the kitchen and find some dry matches.”

She found him sloshing kerosene out of a can where he had dragged it forward. Onto the strewn cotton; onto the deck indiscriminately. Whatever her fears over the plan half revealed to her, Karelia was not one to doubt the ultimate worth of Spike's judgment. Not after that blind groping and battle toward the light he had made first alone and then at her shoulder so short a time ago. The simplicity of her mind was wax to strong impressions. Spike Horn had put his imprint there indelibly. He had proved himself a man—first man to whom Karelia ever had deferred.

He threw a lighted match into the oil steeped cotton. Flame leaped up, and a thick column of black smoke.

“Now the reception committee gets busy,” Spike shouted boyishly and dashed back to the paint closet. He returned with a quart can of linseed oil in either hand. These he placed out of danger from the fire and raced back to the paint closet. Two cans of gasoline were added to his store of inflammables.

They went to the rail to look out over the water where a naval battle in miniature had been going on. The yawl was now racing back toward the Sierra Park, spray flying from two sets of oars. The heavy figure of Captain Judah, half raised from a seat in the stern, was bent in objurgations for speed.

And over yonder where the Lonney Lee lay anchored could be seen the figure of Doctor Chitterly hastily scrambling down the ladder to where the Iron Man held the second yawl close alongside.

“Good old Doc!” Spike chuckled. “I knew this would fetch him, too. The old boy is playing the rescuin' hero part right now.”

Behind where the twain, screened by ratlines from observation of the approaching yawl, were discreetly observing the approach of the boat, a spreading pillar of flame roared upward. The deck boards of the Sierra Park, long bleached in the tropic sun, were fair tinder. Horn's emergency measure had written the doom of the steamer and her outlaw cargo.

The yawl drew under a sea ladder which had been lowered overside to accommodate the descent of the crippled Storrs on his sally to recover the Lonney Lee. Spike with set features ran crouching along the rail, an uncovered can of linseed oil between his palms. He paused where the ladder came over the rail, lifted himself for an appraising squint at a line of trajectory over and down.

A bellow from Captain Storrs who had seen the shock head at its instant appearance above the rail.

Flicker of a match—quick lifting of a flaming meteor overside—a tumbling cascade of fire.

Doctor Chitterly and the Iron Man, straining at their oars not fifty yards behind, looked over-shoulder at the sound of hideous shouting.

They saw a boat, all aflame, shoved madly off from the steamer's side; saw a white man—it proved to be Hansen—make a wild spring for the ladder and cling there, saved. Then commenced the leaping of living firebrands into the sea.

Madly they bent to their oars on rescue bound. Their yawl leaped through the water. But faster than the yawl, faster almost than the eye could follow came rushing and ravenous the thin black fins.

A hand was laid on the yawl's gunnel—a white hand. Doctor Chitterly saw it and dropped his oars to reach for it. He saw a strange trepidation run through the fingers—a fluttering as they loosened their hold. The hand disappeared.

title: Plundered Cargo/Chapter 21


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Autumn Communion

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Autumn Communion


text:
Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/130

] The process is well illustrated in plate, b. Samples of this clay were submitted to Doctor Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, who ascertained the percentage composition of the material to be as follows:

He also explains the general method of determination.

For industrial purposes an attempt is made to separate the proximate constituents of a clay by what is called a "rational analysis." For this purpose the clay is treated with sulphuric acid, which is supposed to dissolve the clay substance proper and leave insoluble quartz sand and sand composed of feldspar or other minerals.

In order that the composition of this clay might be compared with analyses of other clays made upon this plan, a determination was made of the matter insoluble in sulphuric acid in sample 24881, with the following results: {| style="border-collapse:collapse; width:100%; max-width:45em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto" Per cent

 * }

The sand insoluble in sulphuric acid is composed approximately as follows:

Comparison of these results with analysis given by Langenbeck indicate that the material represented by sample 24881 resembles the clays used for the production of so-called "red ware" more than any other class of clays used in pottery manufacture by civilized peoples. The following analysis of a typical clay used for making "red ware" is quoted from Langenbeck for purposes of comparison (The Chemistry of Pottery, 1895, 60): {| style="border-collapse:collapse; width:100%; max-width:45em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto"
 * style=text-align:center | Total analysis || style=text-align:center | Rational analysis
 * style="border:1px; border-style:none solid none none; width:50%; padding-right:0.5em; text-align:right" | Per cent || style="width:50%; text-align:right" | Per cent
 * style="border:1px; border-style:none solid none none; padding-right:0.5em" |
 * style="border:1px; border-style:none solid none none; width:50%; padding-right:0.5em; text-align:right" | Per cent || style="width:50%; text-align:right" | Per cent
 * style="border:1px; border-style:none solid none none; padding-right:0.5em" |
 * style="border:1px; border-style:none solid none none; padding-right:0.5em" |

 * style="padding-left:0.5em; vertical-align:top" |

 * }

Another well-known clay pit is situated on MeClellen's branch, at the northeastern base of the Sacaton hills (pl., c), whence a whitish clay is obtained. The villages about the Casa Blanca ruin obtain clay from pits within a stone's throw of the ruin itself and from the river bottom near the village of Rso’tûk.

The tempering materials used in the clays last mentioned are sand and ground potsherds. The clay from the Skâsŏwalĭk hills is so coarse that it requires no tempering.

Red ocher is employed as a slip, which is applied to the surface of the common utensils just before the drying that precedes burning. The water coolers are usually made without this coating of ocher.

Black gum is used for decoration. This is obtained by boiling in a small earthen pot, or in a segment of a large one, mesquite chips

title: Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/130


text:
Plundered Cargo/Chapter 22

VENING, and with the passing of the sun a fresh offshore breeze stealing across the tepid waters of the Vermilion Sea. To the west peninsular mountains carried along their summits the last fiery stripes of the sunset; below that, purple velvet. First stars winked palely from the opposite field of the heavens.

With a creaking of blocks and gurgling forefoot the schooner Lonney Lee breezed along a course north and east of what had been her anchorage in a cove of storm and passion. Guaymas bound she was; Guaymas on the Mexican mainland, where Pullman cars come down from Arizona to lift folk over an imaginary line and into a land where life's viands are not burning with too much chile.

Affairs aboard the Lonney Lee were running very sweetly. At the wheel was the wooden faced Hansen; he who never bothered about what number was going to turn up on Fortune's wheel, who presented always to the world's rough toe so indifferent a mark that there was nothing sporting in that toe's delivering a kick. Hansen, sole survivor of the Sierra Park's last crew, was following a course set for him by a new captain, Karelia Lofgren, and was reasonably content.

In the galley the Iron Man found himself at the strange business of assembling a meal of sorts. For the first time since that night of bad luck in San Francisco when a roistering mining man named Horn, down from Goldfield, took him away from the Thalia and his art, a strange snatch of song bubbled to the Iron Man's lips. Home! At last he was bound home where once more he could sing “Asleep on the Deep” between spoonfuls of beer for an enthralled audience.

Under the awning which spread over the quarterdeck good Doctor Chitterly sat on a camp stool intent upon several little domestic jobs. First with a pair of scissors found in the late Judah Storrs' cabin he trimmed the frays on his left cuff. Then he trimmed the frays on his right cuff. Next he unscrewed the yellow diamond from its resting place in a sadly soiled shirt, blew gently upon it and polished it on his knee.

As he worked the worthy discoverer of Squaw Root Tonic rocked gently back and forth. From the depths of his great chest came a rumble almost resembling a purr.

“And now consider the liver, lad-ees and gentlemen: how it works to hurl deadly poisons into all the unsuspecting members of the human frame. Of the liver Titus Aldivius Seneca, the great Roman physician, said”

Two figures far up in the bow where the belly of the jib screened them from casual glances of anyone behind. They stood, hands locked, looking over the back course to where the low hump of Sabina Island showed against the lesser dark of the peninsula range. Low on the island's shore burned a single red eye—the Sierra Park in her last winding sheet.

They talked in muted voices, these two, of those mysteries of life and love which when first discovered carry such profound significance to the discoverers. Said she: “I did not know; I could not believe that love comes so suddenly. It is funny.”

“Not funny,” he put in reverently, “It's well—um—funny.”

“Funny,” she mused on, “how one day I fight you for a rifle so I may shoot you with it. Next day when I see you risk your life for me I—I kiss you. How do you account for that, Mate?”

He gave a boyish laugh and leaned to bring his lips very near her ear.

“You couldn't help it, girl,” he hoarsely whispered. “What I go after I get, pronto!”

title: Plundered Cargo/Chapter 22


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Bat

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Bat


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Beggar

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Beggar


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Breath

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Breath


text: Poems (Cromwell)/By the Sea

title: Poems (Cromwell)/By the Sea


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Choice

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Choice


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Christian

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Christian


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Christmas, Madison Square


text:
Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/131

126 from portions of the tree on which black gum has dried into hard scales. After boiling, this dye is in the form of a very thin liquid which is so pale that it is scarcely distinguishable on the dark clay, but after the vessel has been given a sight burning the pattern appears in deep black.

As the new vessel is built up the outside is struck with a paddle (pl., b), and the inside is supported by a flat circular stone about 10 cm. in diameter. A smaller stone is used to polish the outer surfaces. Long, smooth, finger-shaped stones are used in polishing the necks of vessels or in places where there are sharp curves.

The fictile ware of the Pimas is made by coiling. The clay is first thoroughly dried, a condition that is easily and quickly brought about by spreading it on blankets in the sun. It is then sifted to remove the larger particles of stone. It is next mixed with water and kneaded a few minutes, formed into lumps the size of the fist, and laid aside to "ripen" over night. The base of the new vessel is begun by spreading a layer of clay over the bottom of an old vessel of suitable size and smoothing it down with the paddle until it extends out several centimeters from the center (see pl., a, where the vessel shown in the potter's lap has just been taken from the olla over which it was molded). The new bottom is allowed to dry an hour in the sun before it is removed and the process of coiling begun. Dipping the fingers in water, the operator moistens the edges of the new vessel, which has dried enough to retain its shape. Then taking one of the prepared balls of clay she rapidly rolls it between the palms until it is lengthened into a cylinder about 20 cm. long, which is laid on the margin of the vessel and pinched into shape. One or perhaps two more rolls are laid on to complete the circuit and then the paddle is applied with the right hand in quick taps to the outside while the circular stone is held on the inside with the left (pl., b). The handle of the paddle is held downward so that the transverse concavity of the instrument is adapted to the horizontal convexity of the growing vessel, which is held in the lap and the coils applied only so fast as they dry sufficiently to cause it to hold its shape. For this reason it is customary for a potter to model three or four vessels at the same time so there need be no delay by waiting for the last layer to dry. As each coil is finished it is placed where the sun can shine upon it and the work progresses much faster than it could in a less arid climate. As soon as the vessel has been built up a little way so there is room for the paddle to be used above the plane

title: Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/131


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Circle

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Circle


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Compensation

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Compensation


text: Poems (Cromwell)/Conflict

title: Poems (Cromwell)/Conflict


text: Poems (Cromwell)/The Crowning Gift

title: Poems (Cromwell)/The Crowning Gift