“I respect you for it, my sweet. It was the only way. If Salver had not fallen in love with you, I couldn’t have forced him to commit suicide as I did.”
“And—and you didn’t mind impersonating a silly thing like the Moon-God?”
“No. It was—”
The young man’s words aborted in his throat. As the girl spoke her slighting remark about the Moon-God which had never existed, there came a sudden rumbling sound from the studio behind the cottage. A rumbling, roaring sound. The house shook on its foundations, as if rocked by an earthquake. Flame flashed and died.
“Good Lord!” the young man whispered. He took his wife’s hand; they raced back to the studio.
“Look!” the girl pointed a trembling finger.
In the bright moonlight, she indicated the spot where that great grey stone had stood: the stone which Salver had carved into an amorphous, hideous shape. There was no stone, no idol, on that spot now. There was nothing—
Nothing but a yawning, maw-like hole in the earth, from which tiny, licking flames still flickered.
SMUGGLER’S ISLAND, by Atwater Culpepper
Originally published in Spicy Adventure Stories, April 1935.
Four motionless, water soaked, sun-scalded figures lay sprawled in the sand. High over the beach a buzzard circled in narrowing rings. He swooped confidently in one last reconnoiter, dropped lower—lower—his talons hooked, his predatory beak was ready for tearing the limp flesh that lay below him—
He checked his flight, and rose swiftly into the air. One of the still forms had roused, and was staggering drunkenly toward a wind-blown sand-drift.
At the menacing whirr, Eileen Curtis struggled up on her elbow. She shrieked hysterically as the great bird flapped away. Her once marcelled hair was strung in disheveled curls. Her wrinkled white dress was hunched up about her hips, and below it extended snagged stockings, water-soaked lace, dangling garters. In spite of the blazing sun, she shivered.
Terry Dale opened his eyes. His face was crusted with salt and blistered with the torturing afternoon sun. Searing agony ran through his wracked muscles, as he managed to get to his feet, and stumble over where Dan Mayo was profanely trying to light a water-soaked cigarette.
One of the matches, drier than its fellows, caught. Mayo cupped the feeble flicker, and puffed till the soggy tobacco was alight. He blew a smoke-ring, and leaned back on the hot sand.
Dale tottered above him. “Got any more that will light?” he croaked through bleeding lips.
Mayo’s eyes became mere slits in his puffy face. “If I have, they’re mine. Matches are valuable things on this God-forsaken sandspit.”
“I know they are. That’s why you might have the decency to light a fire, instead of wasting them.”
“Fire? In this tropic hellhole? They’re my matches, and if there are any good ones in the lot, I’m going to keep ’em.” He blew a puff of smoke in Dale’s face.
Eileen Curtis got to her feet painfully. She managed to work the sodden skirt down over her wet step-ins. “Don’t be selfish,” she pleaded. “How about one of those cigarettes?”
“Nothing doing. Smoking’s bad for shipwrecked li’l girls.”
Terry elbowed her aside. “Give me that matchbox!”
“Give you that! Like hell I will!” With an arrogant leer Mayo lurched unsteadily to his feet. Dale’s fist swung in a swift uppercut. It caught Mayo fair on his pouchy chin. His eyes opened foolishly, the cigarette flew wide, and he sprawled on the sand.
Eileen’s face hardened. “Brute!”
Terry caught up the half-smoked cigarette “Pick up some of that dry stuff!”
Eileen stared in amazement. “Me?”
“Yes, I mean you! All of you! Make it snappy, it you want to save this light!”
She turned her back contemptuously. Terry Dale swung around and caught her roughly by the shoulders. “Did you hear me?”
Her hand slapped his cheek like a pistol-shot. Terry staggered, off balance, then boiled over with rage. He swung the girl down over his knee, her legs kicking wildly. Terry deliberately lifted her skirt, raised his hand, and brought it down with a series of resounding thwacks on the seat of her lacy step-ins. There was pent-up fury in his blows.
Eileen screamed with rage and hysteria. He flung her from him at last roughly upon the sand.
“Now will you do—what—I tell you?”
Marcia Mayo alone of the quartet understood his wrathful orders. She had caught up the expiring cigarette, had snatched together a handful of dry leaves and palm-fronds, and thrust the stub among them. Down on her knees, she blew lustily.
Just as the last bit of smoldering tobacco was about to go out, a leaf caught on the edge, and began to glow. Terry joined her in blowing at the trickling column of smoke, until another tindery bit caught. A stick blackened, lit, and burst into flame.
Dan Mayo sat up and glared malevolently at the blaze. He felt gingerly of his jaw. “Good mind to—to put out the damn fire. If you think you can do that to me—”
Terry turned wrathfully. “If you do—God help you! Here, hand over that matchbox!”
Dan muttered something under his breath, rubbed his aching jaw, but sullenly handed over the case.
“Now gather some of that driftwood, and keep that fire going!”
He obeyed sulkily. There was potent magic in Terry Dale’s two fists.
Fate had laughed at the ill-assorted group that had found shelter in the tossing lifeboat, when the Palmetto State, a flaming pillar, had vanished into the waters of the Caribbean, in an exploding Gehenna that had lit up the sea for miles. Fate had chuckled grimly when a tropical hurricane had lashed the blue waters to frenzy, had snatched away the two sailors and the second steward, and had left this ill-chosen quartet together.
It had been the worst marine disaster of years, this wreck of the Southern liner. Scouting planes had utterly failed to locate this tossing lifeboat. On a brilliant afternoon Fate had flung the drifting boat through the roaring surges on the low shore of a nameless key, spilling out the four exhausted survivors after three days of drifting under a tropic sun and eerie moonlight.
* * * *
The trouble had arisen in the smoking room. There had been sessions at draw and stud at which Terry had lost more than he could afford—mostly to Mayo. Finally Terry’s suspicions had crystallized. A switched ace—in the heat of argument chairs were flung back, bottles upset, cards and chips clattered on the floor. And the punch that Dan Mayo had received this afternoon had all the venom behind it of the one that had not been delivered the night onlookers held the two apart.
Coming out of the smoker, angry, feeling that he had made a fool of himself without result, Terry had seen a kimonoed figure beckoning him from the shadow of a darkened stateroom. In swift whispers Marcia Mayo had warned him to look out for her husband’s undue skill with the pasteboards. It had been too late, Terry told her grimly. The damage had been done.
Marcia had laid a commiserating hand on his shoulder. And just at that unlucky moment Eileen Curtis had swung by on a late promenade of the deck.
When you find your fiancé standing in the doorway of another woman’s darkened stateroom—a woman whose half-open kimono reveals not much of anything underneath, whose bare arm is laid caressingly on his shoulder, whose eyes look up earnestly into his, you are not likely to listen to explanations. Eileen had wrenched Terry’s ring from her finger, shoved it into his hands, and stormed off to her own stateroom.
A few hours later the cruise was over. A muffled roar, acrid smoke, a sheet of flame lighting up the water, a flaming hell below decks. And now this hectic quartet was left alone with one another on a wave-washed key somewhere in the Caribbean.
* * * *
The sour edge of resentment was by no means lessened with the coming of morning sunlight. Breakfast was but a name—a mor
sel of soggy ship’s biscuit, washed down with a cupful of lukewarm water—and there was not enough of this to last the day out.
Marcia shook the sand from her warped shoes, stripped off her stockings, and waded out into the surf. She stood there a moment, the water lapping about her ankles. Then, with a scream, she splashed shoreward. She bent down and scooped up a reddish-blue crab, and flung it upon the sand with a shudder.
Her husband guffawed as she nursed her injured foot, lunged after the crab, tore the shell apart, and scooped out the raw meat from the claws.
“Not half bad,” he drawled. “And isn’t it about time the Admirable Crichton devised some kind of fishing tackle? That’s standard castaway stuff, isn’t it?”
Terry flushed at the challenge. “Another crack like that, and I’ll flatten you!”
“Who caught that crab? My wife, wasn’t it? Haven’t noticed you adding anything to the breakfast table.” He took out one of his remaining cigarettes and managed to light it in the embers.
Terry’s eyes flamed. He fumbled in his pocket, brought out his pen-knife, and opened one blade after another.
Marcia lifted her skirt, and began fumbling around under her pink step-ins. She stretched out a hand. “Lend me that knife, Terry.”
She hacked at the pink elastic, and passed him a small bit of metal and rubber. With affected carelessness she turned away and sauntered off where Eileen was still vainly pursuing sand-crabs.
Terry gazed dumbly at the contents of his palm. Then his sunburned face lit up with understanding. He dropped down on the sand and began to work with his nail file.
The thin steel was never intended for working metal, but before it was quite wrecked, he had managed to convert Marda’s garter-clasp into a passable fishhook. Using the remnants of the crab for bait, and a ball of packthread in the boat’s locker for a line, he managed to catch two medium-sized fish.
When the last bone had been picked clean, Terry proposed an exploring trip over the island. It brought only strained silence, shrugging shoulders. His eyes snapped, but without further words he set off alone into the scrub.
He had gone only a few hundred yards, when he heard a faint hail. He stopped and waited for his companion to catch up. But it was not Eileen, as he had hoped, but Marcia Mayo.
They plodded in silence through the bay and dwarf palmetto. It might have been half an hour before he stopped for breath. Marcia stumbled up to him, and laid her hand upon his arm.
“Do I get the silent treatment, too? Somehow my Good Samaritan act just set everybody on the outs. I almost wish I hadn’t tried to warn you—”
“Why should you? Did I make any more impression than the rest of the saps that your husband gets his living from—cheating at cards?”
Marcia’s eyes snapped. She took up the trail behind him in tense silence. With a swift revulsion of feeling Terry stopped, and caught at her arm. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.”
“Oh—all right.” She plodded after him, until they stopped for breath again. She looked ruefully at the rents in her blue silk. “Another mile, and this will be a Hawaiian grass-skirt—and there aren’t any department stores on this island.”
With superb disregard of Terry’s presence, she tucked it up about her waist, found a safety-pin somewhere in her costume, and fastened it about her hips.
The pin was utterly inadequate, however. They had gone barely a dozen steps before the skirt dropped. She shook her head. “I’ll need this dress—and there won’t be anything left of it.”
She caught at the hem and pulled it off over her shoulders. Terry gazed in astonishment as she rolled it up in a little bundle, and strode by his side in brassiere and step-ins. “Now don’t tell me you’ve got the modesty fever, Terry,” she grinned. “If you have—just get over it.”
* * * *
They reached the other side of the island at last. Here was another cove and a beach, somewhat larger than the one on which they had been flung ashore. Marcia plumped wearily down on the rocks.
“Is this any better than the other side?” she challenged.
Terry did not answer. He was busy clearing the leaves away from a crevice where the water was bubbling out. He bent over it and waited for it to clear. Marcia bent over beside him.
“Water! Boy, am I thirsty?” Her lips had just touched the liquid when Terry caught her.
“Let me try that first.”
“Oh-h! The private in this expedition doesn’t count! Are you going to spank me, too, if I disobey orders?” Terry looked grimly at the scantily clad figure. “It wouldn’t be so very hard, at that. But all right, go ahead. I wasn’t sure how fit the stuff might be to drink—thought I’d better be the one to take chances.”
She softened as quickly as she had flared up. “Sorry. It wasn’t the dictator complex, then? You know, that doesn’t go with me any better than it does with Dan.”
Terry sighed wearily. “Do all of you have to misunderstand?”
She drank deeply, then smiled up at him. “Oh, I know. We’re all keyed up—nerves frazzled—and whose wouldn’t be, after what we’ve gone through?”
He caught hungrily at her. “You’re the only one who seems to understand—who isn’t ready to flare up at the first suggestion—”
Her bare arm rested on his shoulder. “Poor boy! I’m fagged, too, but I’m trying to take it—and keep my chin up.”
His clasp tightened about her. The soft warm flesh, the lithe curves of her body, under its thin, abbreviated covering, the heady warmth of her nearness, set his befogged senses aflame. She lay unresisting in his arms. A strap of the inadequate brassiere parted, a firm breast appeared above the confining silk. Impulsively Terry’s hand covered it, luxuriated in the smooth, tightening mound.
“I shouldn’t let you do that, Terry,” she murmured. “If you were yourself, you wouldn’t do it. But we’re all quite mad—”
He disengaged his hand, caught his breath sharply. “Sorry. Guess I’m crazy. But I’ve been through—hell on this trip—”
Her eyes searched his for a moment, then smiled gently. “You have had a pretty raw deal. Some of it’s my fault, I’m afraid.” With a sudden gesture she pulled the sagging brassiere down, so that her rounded breasts rose unconfined above it. She guided his hand till it covered the firm mounds, and he could feel them quiver under his palm. “Just for this minute. Terry, I’m trying to make it up to you—a little—just till you get a grip on yourself—”
His arm tightened about the smooth flesh at her waist. His hand dropped on her rounded, lace-covered thigh, moved upwards—his lips bent over hers.
Suddenly Terry looked over the white arm about his neck. His eyes froze with horror. Not ten feet away two figures stood in the scrub, looked down at them, wordless, significantly.
Dan Mayo and Eileen Curtis had followed the trail!
* * * *
They built a shelter of brush and palm-leaves that afternoon on a little knoll overlooking the cove. It was quite dark before it was sufficiently completed to be of service. They lit a campfire with one of Mayo’s matches and sprawled before it in aggressive silence.
Finally Eileen slipped away from the little circle of light and glided down to the beach. Here she perched, a tiny blur of white, on the tip of a ledge. A few moments later Marcia arose and glided away in the opposite direction. Terry got up and piled an armful of fuel on the fire. Mayo lay stretched out in front of the blaze, too angrily indifferent to contribute even a bit of wood.
Terry stood glaring down at him, then scuffed off shoreward. Irresistibly he was drawn to where Eileen crouched on the rock.
Her eyes blazed. “Isn’t there anywhere else on this island that you can go? Why don’t you—go over and make love to Marcia Mayo?”
“I might, at that! She’s the only one that tries to help!”
“So—I observed. Very helpful. T
oo bad we interrupted that tender scene this afternoon. And I wasn’t resourceful enough to think of donating my garters for fish-hooks. And I’m not good sport enough to ramble through the jungle with a man in my underwear. And I don’t like to be pawed over.”
“Don’t be a cat, Eileen!” Terry’s resentment flamed up and boiled over. “You’re a pampered, selfish little beast, who’s afraid of soiling her hands and her clothes, and who expects everybody else to wait on her hand and foot!”
He strode off angrily. Eileen sat on the rock, her hands clasped on her knees, her shoulders shaking. “To think that Terry should talk like that to me!”
She grinned. “After all, I had it coming to me—and I rather like him for it!”
* * * *
Terry woke abruptly. The moon no longer silvered the cove. Rain was beating steadily on the sand. Above the raindrops he had a vivid sense of hearing voices, and the throb of an engine. So strong was his impression that he got up, crawled over the gross bulk of the sleeping Mayo, and crept out into the open.
There was nothing to be seen except the long roll of the combers on the deserted beach, nothing to be heard but the lashing of the rain on the palm-fronds.
When morning light came, Terry pursed his lips thoughtfully. There were footprints on the wet sand, and a deep impression that might have been made by the keel of a boat. Beside it lay the remains of a sodden cigar, still bearing a gaudy red and gold band.
Somewhere in the sands of the beach lay the answer. He wandered aimlessly till he came to a spot where the long shadow of a lone palm stretched like a giant pencil-mark on the sand. It formed an almost perfect line to the point of the cove. A spot on that shadowy line bore evidence of recent disturbance. He caught up a fragment of driftwood, and began to dig.
His feverish movements caught the attention of the others. One by one they joined him.
“Buried treasure?” sneered Mayo. “I wouldn’t dig like that for a Spanish galleon. If it were a bottle of Haig and Haig, now—”
The Spicy-Adventure Page 12