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Show I forlorn'IsiZndI : By Edison Marshall . Copyright by Edleon MirrtinB I WNU Serrlct I CHAPTER IVContlnued "I am Snndomar," he began. "I speak for these men. I do not hear, but I speak. We no longer work for you. It's every one for himself, now. The ship has gone down ; everything ev-erything Is swept away. There Is no more civilization. There ls no more law." No one answered him. Apparently Apparent-ly there was no answer possible. All that Ilorton had stood for was at the bottom of the sea. His checkbook was a useless scrap of paper. His sky had fallen down upon up-on his head, and his earth was crumbling under his feet. All, all was gone. "I will be ln no hurry to leave here," Sandomar's monotone ran on. "It ls the first time In my life that I am free." Then, without a change of voice or expression: "Always I have been denied what ls best in life: the pick of the food, the pick of the women. I have eaten scraps, I have handled only ugly-faced, old, and worn-out Jades. That Is all over now and tonight I will make a new start" The blood left Horton's cheek, but a piercing light was In his eyes. That he had made up his mind to fight to the finish Eric knew well. "I Am Sandomar," He Began. "I Speak for These Men. I Do Not Hear but 1 Speak." "Give me that revolver," he whispered. whis-pered. But Eric shook his head. "Wait. It's not time yet." Sandomar saw the message pass, and his luminous eyes moved quickly to Garge's right hand. The lean little fingers flickered briefly, fast as a swallow's wing ; Sandomar's Sando-mar's Up curled ln contempt. "No one will Interfere with me," he said. "One of you has a gun, but he will keep it to guard his own life. I, Sandomar, will not hurt any of you If you let me have my way and I will have it anyhow. Tonight I will take one of the girls the mistress mis-tress or the servant, I do not care for my pleasure." The threat would not have been quite bo terrifying had he spoken in a man's voice, Instead of the dull monotone like a gorilla that had learned to talk. Marie uttered a low cry, and running to Nan, clutched her hand. But Nan stood erect, her dusky face blanched but calm, glittering eyes moving slowly from one of the principals to another: an-other: Sandomar, his unstable feet far apart, leaning forward with his great arms bowed, his chin thrown up; Horton, gray and desperate; Roy, cold, speculative, and rational as always; at last Eric, his brown hair blowing in the wind, his long body supple and relaxed, waiting waiting. Behind these, Mother Horton Hor-ton stood quivering not with fear but with rage. The Aleuts stared with sunken, dull eyes. Horton turned fiercely to Eric, "Curse you, give me that gun 1" Eric shook his head absently. Only on one condition could he have obeyed this order, that Horton was a stronger man and a better shot than himself, and it was not true. Eric's only possible rival was Roy, cold-nerved, long-headed, cautious, cau-tious, and calculating, but which of the two was greater was yet to be shown. Anyway, Eric believed In his own destiny. A sense of power swept through him that would yield to no man here. The gun might yet prove the scepter of empire, em-pire, and he would keep it himself. This decision made, he stepped out of the fading light into the ruddy glow of the fire. Sandomar's gang, now edging slowly forward, stopped in their tracks. "You'd better stay out of this ere" Garge said shrilly. The absurd ab-surd voice grated on every nerve In the crowd. "Sandy'H bust you open. F.ric did not look at him. His blue eves were fixed on the little glowing triangles under Sandomar s bony, protruding brows. There was i no hatred In that clash, but a pas-I pas-I sionless ana Implacable enmity. THE STORY FROM THE BEGINNING ln JXhhhU V j""'4 bM"i"ed " Fex Horton, million.!, fl. to recruit Fwo". ,enNan'nd R" Stuart' lnl Sua- Harbor, Alaa. thero i ,Jt ?pl f all7' "ortm - bunch of nond.script. .trdrf Ployed, ST.,,. o'il, it, EEri". holding m.,t.r'. p.per., but unom- crowd. EriTti cot,' , ..'"u- Th Intr,Did U i""" b S.ndom.r'. mlr. and lv. th. Ihln hKI j h P,,,h"y WO,ch s"""r kill C.pt.in W.y. IntlM Both were keen Judges of men ; both 1 knew fear. "Get out of my way," Sandomar muttered. "There are eight of us perhaps nine and you are only one." He reached his Immense long I arm, picked up a boulder the size of a coconut, and held It low to the ground. "You can not kill more than one of us with your gun before be-fore your ribs will be caved In. You had best stand aside and save your shells for your own need." "If I can kill only one, that one will be you." Eric spoke slowly and clearly. "You can't have the girl, Sandomar. Now or any time." Sandomar glanced aside to the quivering claws of his jackal. His own wrist grew tense, the boulder shook a. little in his grasp, and Eric's hand went to his revolver butt For an instant he toyed with i the thought of killing the creature here and now. It was the rational thing to do Roy and he would agree on this point provided the red-eyed pack would scatter. But Garge and the rest were crazed with a drink more debasing than rum, new-found freedom from all law. One act of violence might turn this firelit scene Into a shambles. Their drawn black faces told that when Sandomar fell they would not cower, but would charge In a howling howl-ing mass, break Eric down, and wipe out everyone who stood between be-tween them and their prize. ; He made no move to fire. Perhaps Per-haps this was a fatal mistake, but he must follow his pilot star. "You want one of the girls for yourself?" Sandomar asked. "One of them, yes." There seemed nothing strange In this answer, even to Nan, so swiftly and utterly had every old form passed away, and so simple and direct had all things become. "But that's not my reason. No man can have any woman on this Island save by her own consent. con-sent. That's the law." Garge's fingers flickered again. "But there is no law here I" Sandomar's Sando-mar's monotone was pitched higher, high-er, giving a strange, startling effect of emphasis. "All law ls gone." "There ls a new law." Eric spoke quietly, but his voice had resonance and his face a light never present before, the deep exultation born of conscious power. When Garge had Interpreted, Sandomar San-domar spoke a single syllable, a question pregnant with meaning and event. - "You?" With a single syllable, Eric answered an-swered "I." Then, with a casualness that somehow held a new and sober dignity, dig-nity, much as one of his viking forebears, fore-bears, In a winged hat, might speak to a conquered tribe on the Saxon coast: "Anyone who breaks the law will be killed." CHAPTER V ERIC had no need to show his revolver. re-volver. To behold Law, drowned and dead In the sea, rise up calm j and strong seemed to stun his ene- j mies. They were set for a bloody fight and loss of life on both sides, ! but not for this ghost of the past, this sublime, eternal force that Eric 1 had taken into his hands. i Sandomar dropped his stone, then ' his eyes. Eric knew that tonight he j was master. "You'd better go now, to your sleeping quarters," he said, j "I'll meet you all in the morning, ' and give you the Ilne-up. It will be a hard day tomorrow." ; Sandomar hesitated a second or ; two, opened his immense drooping I mouth as though to speak, then ! turned with a grunt. Quickly he hobbled away, his men following him without one backward glance. His eyes luminous and his heart leaping, Eric returned to the fire. His exultation was dying swiftly, cold clutched his bones, and he feared to speak lest his shaking I voice would betray his now-falter- Ing faith. Nan was eyeing him half In wonder, half in defiance. Roy j calmly lighted a smoke, and turned with a sardonic smile. "I hand it to you, Ericssen. That was a fine bluff." , Eric pulled himself together and steeled his heart. "It wasn't a bluff, j I'm in command of the island. It's going to be under marine law and I I'm the captain. I don't fancy the J job. but someone's got to do It, to j save the girls and all our lives, i You can get that through your heads right now." j Kan found herself between two fires. Her eyes were lustrous, and she remembered with a strange, sweet falntness of heart Eric's breast crushing hers and the warmth of his Hps; but her head was up and her cheeks darkly glowing. This was a challenge she could not refuse. The native enmity of two free souls flamed np again. "I'm not going to get it through my head," was her cold reply. "I'm grateful to you, too, for a magnificent magnifi-cent bluff, but don't spoil it by carrying car-rying it too far." Eric's shoulders sagged. He could fight no more tonight, he was dog-tired. dog-tired. "I'll take the matter up with you ln the morning. Now I'm going go-ing to bed and I think you'd better do the same. As long as you stay here, It will be an invitation for that gang to make more trouble." Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown ; and that night the devils of fear and worry rode Eric hard. Had he acted for the best? Could he finish what he had begun? Should he have killed Sandomar, when he had the chance? Wouldn't it have been better to have shared responsibility with Roy and Horton? In commandeering the island, would he not antagonize the natives, whose help was vital to his ultimate ulti-mate victory? And what on earth did he mean by telling Sandomar that he wanted one of the girls for himself? Of all his follies, this was the worst. Surely it was not true. His only aim and hope was to save the expedition. He would have no time or energy for day-dreaming of the unobtainable. Yet she kept haunting his thoughts . . . the deep, still pools of her eyes, glamorous in their heavy fringe of lash . . . the dusky gloss of her hair, blowing ln the wind . . . the warm golden tan of her satin flesh . . . the exquisite curved lines of her form. He slept at last, to be awakened by a hand on his shoulder. Silently Roy beckoned him to the open turf-house turf-house door. As dawn stretched a pale arm over the eastern sea, the Aleut hunters gathered on the creek-bank creek-bank to perform a heathen rite. They were naked save for a kind of loin-cloth, probably made of birdskin. Forming a circle, with tawny arms upraised, they chanted slowly in unison. Presently they waded into the stream, and with their cupped hands, splashed the Icy water three times over their bodies, in rhythm with the chant. Then they sprang out and sprinted to their huts. Roy's cold eyes were fairly glittering. glit-tering. "Eric, isn't this the beginning begin-ning of the lunar month the new moon?" "There'll be a new moon tonight." "This is a wonderful thing. I've read about the ceremony, the Russians Rus-sians recorded It on their first visits vis-its to the Aleut Islands, but it was thought to have passed from the earth. It's a pagan rite; you notice no-tice the priestess took no part ln it." "I'd like to know what they were saying," Eric said. . "I'll tell you, and I bet when you ask Chechaquo, he'll back me up. The first part of the chant was an Invocation for the sun to rise the source of all life. When they were splashing themselves, each man was saying: T am not dead I am not asleep I am alive!'" And now Eric, too, must show that he was not dead, not asleep, but alive. Banishing all doubt and fear, believing In his destiny, he sent word by Chechaquo that every soul on the island must gather on the beach. What if someone, na- I tive or white, refused to come? The answer was force. There could be no half-way measures now, no compromise. com-promise. He had gone too far to back down. Every soul came. In his blue, officer's coat, his eyes the hue of the sea behind him, Eric stood before the crowd and announced the new administration, the dictatorship of Forlorn Island, the coming of the White Man's Law. First, native and alien must work together, to make the Island fruitful. fruit-ful. There could be no Idle hands. The children must help within their powers; the white women, as well as the squaws, must do their part. No one could be supported In Idleness. Idle-ness. "Half again as much dried salmon, sal-mon, smoked meat and bread-root must be put aside for winter." Eric told them gravely. "Half again as many parkas and mukluks must be I made. It means from sun to sun ln good weather." He paused, his gaze sweeping the crowd. Some of Sandomar's men looked woe-begone. Law and labor, their special abominations, were clutching them again. Eric glanced at Nan, but some devil of pride glazed her gray eyes and set her lips ln a grim line. "What would your highness have us do?" she asked bitterly. "Chew skins like the Eskimos?" It must be all or nothing, life or death. "Something Just as bad, perhaps. per-haps. Yet I'm hoping that you three white women can be spared the worst Jobs, simply because they'd seem so much harder to you than to the squaws." All work, both by brown and white, was to be under Eric's general gen-eral direction. If disputes arose, he would settle them. He laid down the proposition that the soil belonged to the Aleuts, that the conquerors con-querors could exploit them, make them labor, rule them, but they must not starve them, steal from them, or shed their blood. The sailors sail-ors could have only Aleut girls of proper age who gave themselves willingly; they could share the hunters' wives, an old Aleut custom, cus-tom, only with the husbands' consent con-sent If any man broke this law, or committed murder, or mutinied against the captain, he would be killed. "There can be no appeal," Eric said in a low, grave tone. "There'll be no chance for a second offense. The lives of the whole party are at stake. I myself will sentence the law-breaker and carry out the execution." exe-cution." Nan's look was sullen all her life she had given commands, never obeyed them, and discipline was a word she did not know but why did her heart leap up? Her gaze was dark with resentment, yet It could not turn from the viking form ln the blowing mist, the bright erect head, the grave face for the moment mo-ment alight with the flame of Ideal-Ism, Ideal-Ism, the eyes blue with the essence of the eternal sea. She almost hated him for dominating her, and despised herself for the thrill of it On Chechaquo's advice, Eric divided di-vided his forces Into three parties, the first to kill sea-lions hauling out to breed on the far beach, the second sec-ond to gather eggs and net birds on the rotting treacherous shale of the bluffs, and the third, mostly squaws, to spear, clean and dry a small early school of salmon that had escaped the half-built fish-trap. Among the squaws at the drying rack was a lean little woman with lively motions. It was Mother Horton. Hor-ton. With Marie's help she was cutting cut-ting into strips and hanging the fish fast as her "slimer" could supply them. The "slimer" had slender, once-lovely once-lovely hands. Eric watched them a full minute before she looked up. It was Nan, and she had deliberately deliber-ately chosen the hardest, most disagreeable dis-agreeable chore in sight. She was kneeling on the creek bank, cleaning clean-ing fish. Her hands and face were blood-stained, stiff with slime and scales, her fingers were bleeding from fin-scratches, and she was sobbing, sob-bing, half ln fury, half In pain. She saw him and sprang to her feet. With the sleeve of her parka she wiped her face of its stain and tears. "I wasn't crying," she told him angrily. "I got sand ln my eyes." "You'd better stop till you get It out . . . And I didn't mean you to do this, anyway." "I'm not doing It for yon." Her drawn pale cheeks began to darken. "I'm Not Doing It for You." Hot Drawn Pale Cheeks Began to Darken. "If you think I am, you're making the biggest mistake of your life. I'd have starved before I let you force me to do anything." "It wouldn't have been for me, anyway," Eric said gravely. "It would be for Law, which I'm trying to represent. I have nothing to win or lose." (TO EE CONTINUED.) |
