Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/166

Rh then, sitting down beside the table, he picked up the weapon and examined it gingerly.

"Poisoned!" he remarked casually to the man lying on the bed. "I knocked bloody hell out of Tulagi as a lesson to the rest of 'em. They're getting insolent, with only one of us to handle 'em. Wish to heaven you were up and around again."

"Upon the platform, eh?" the sick man listlessly inquired.

Kimball nodded.

"They're gettin' bold," he said shortly. "Five hundred niggers are too many for one man to keep straight. It's been plain hell since you went down—and then the dog had to turn up his toes. When Donaldson comes in next week with the Scary-Saray we'll have to send after a new nigger-chaser. Chipin's got a couple extra ones he's been trainin' over at Berande."

The sick man rolled over with a groan.

"Thank heaven I was taken sick!" he remarked bitterly. "It's hard, God knows, but it gave me a chance to find out just what sort of cur you are, Kimball."

Kimball scowled. He half opened his mouth as if to answer. Then, thinking better of it, he poured himself another drink and resumed his occupation of examining the weapon he had taken from the native. He swayed slightly in his chair under the load of liquor he was carrying, yet his voice was unblurred as, after a minute's silence, he looked across at the other.

"Can't you get that out of your head, Hansen?" he remarked. "I'm getting bloody well fed up on it."

Hansen raised himself on an elbow and angrily shook his fist at the other.

"Oh, you're 'getting bloody well fed up on it,' are you?" he mimicked. "I should think you would be! I supposed I'm hurtin' your delicate feelings by mentioning it to you, eh? It's nothing a man should howl about, is it?—having one he thought was his best friend pull off a dirty stunt like that!"

Kimball poured himself another drink. His hand shook slightly as he raised the glass to his lips.

"Oh, forget it and go to sleep!" he growled.

"Yes, 'forget it,' you damned crooked, lyin', double-crosser! I'm apt t' forget how you wrote to Gladys and told her I'd taken a nigger wife! Wanted her yourself, didn't you, you low-down, gin-guzzling rat! It was just a piece of luck that I was taken sick and you had t' look after the plantation instead of goin' after th' mail last time, or I'd never have got that letter from her telling me why'd she'd turned me down."

"I'm telling you now, for th' last time, that I didn't write that stuff to her!" Kimball snarled back. "I'm tellin' you it's a lie. I showed you the letter I wrote to her, giving her my word of honor that somebody'd been doin' you dirt."

"Who else is there here on the Islands that knew her back home?" Hansen demanded, dropping back onto the pillows again. "And who else knew that we were engaged?"

"How in hell do I know?" Kimball answered thickly, reaching unsteadily for the bottle. "You're a sick man, Hansen, or I'd beat you up for th' way you're talkin' to me."

The sick man raised himself from his pillows again with a snort of anger, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming feverishly.

"It's a long road that's got no turn in it!" he muttered. "It's my money that's in this plantation, Kimball—my money against your experience. And keep that damned arrow pointed th' other way, you fool! You're drunk—too drunk to be monkeyin' with weapons. You'd just as soon shoot me as not: if you do, I'll get you if I have to come back from th' grave to do it! And remember this, Kimball: Soon' I'm able to be up and around again, we'll have a settlement. And out you'll go from this plantation, you—"

Whether it was an accident, or plain murder, nobody knows. Kimball was drunk—beastly so. The arrow was loaded in the bow and clasped between his trembling fingers, the bow-string taut. And Hansen had annoyed him, angered him, bullied him, cursed him. At any rate, as he slumped forward in