Unaccountably, the entire scene assumed an aspect of menace in the eyes of the English girl. Apparently it was only the simple religious service of a simple people and yet, to Barbara Coils, there was something terrible about it, something that seemed fraught with horror.
She glanced at Jezebel. The girl was sitting cross legged, her elbows on her knees, her chin supported in the palms of her hands, staring straight ahead. There was no smile now upon her lips.
Suddenly the air was rent by a childish scream of fear and horror that brought the Lady Barbara's gaze back to the scene below. She saw the child, struggling and fighting, dragged to the top of the boulder; she saw Abraham, the son of Abraham, raise a hand above his head; she saw the torchlight play upon a knife; and then she turned away and hid her face in her hands.
Chapter 3
The 'Gunner'
Danny 'Gunner' Patrick stretched luxuriously in his deck chair. He was at peace with the world—temporarily, at least. In his clothes were 20 G. securely hidden. Beneath his left arm pit, also securely hidden, snuggled a .45 in a specially designed holster. 'Gunner' Patrick did not expect to have to use it for a long, long time perhaps; but it was just as well to be prepared. 'Gunner' hailed from Chicago where people in his circle of society believe in preparedness.
He had never been a Big Shot, and if he had been content to remain more or less obscure he might have gone along about his business for some time until there arrived the allotted moment when, like many of his late friends and acquaintances, he should be elected to stop his quota of machine gun bullets; but Danny Patrick was ambitious. For years he had been the right hand, and that means the pistol hand, of a Big Shot. He had seen his patron grow rich—'lousy rich,' according to Danny's notion—and he had become envious.
So Danny double-crossed the Big Shot, went over to the other side, which, incidentally, boasted a bigger and better Big Shot, and was a party to the hijacking of several truck loads of booze belonging to his former employer.
Unfortunately, on the occasion of the hijacking of the last truck, one of his former pals in the service of the double-crossee recognized him; and Danny, knowing that he had been recognized, sought, quite pardonably, to eliminate this damaging evidence; but his unwilling target eluded him and before he could rectify his ballistic errors the police came.
It is true that they obligingly formed an escort to convoy the truck safely to the warehouse of the bigger and better Big Shot, but the witness to Danny's perfidy escaped.
Now Danny 'Gunner' Patrick knew the temper of his erstwhile patron—and who better? Many of the Big Shot's enemies, and several of his friends, had Danny taken for a ride. He knew the power of the Big Shot, and he fearea him. Danny did not want to go for a ride himself, but he knew that if he remained in dear old Chi he would go the way of all good gunmen much too soon to suit his plans.
And so, with the 20 G . that had been the price of his perfidy, he had slipped quietly out of town; and, being wise in his day and generation, he had also slipped quietly out of the country, another thread to be woven into Fate's tapestry.
He knew that the Big Shot was slipping (that was one reason he had deserted him); and he also knew that, sooner or later, the Big Shot would have a grand funeral with truck loads of flowers and, at least, a ten thousand dollar casket. So Danny would daily in foreign climes until after the funeral.
Just where he would daily he did not know, for Danny was shy of geographic lore; but he knew he was going at least as far as England, which he also knew to be somewhere in London.
So now he lolled in the sun, at peace with the world that immediately surrounded him; or almost at peace, for there rankled in his youthful breast various snubs that had been aimed in his direction by the few fellow passengers he had accosted. Danny was at a loss to understand why he was
It was the third day out, and Danny was already fed up on ocean travel. He almost wished that he were back in Chicago where he knew he could find congenial spirits with whom to foregather, but not quite. Better a temporary isolalion above ground than a permanent one below.
A young man whom he had not before noticed among the passengers came and sat down in the chair next to his. He looked over at Danny and smiled. 'Good morning,' he said. 'Lovely weather we're having.'
Danny's cold, blue eyes surveyed the stranger. 'Are we?' he replied in a tone as cold as his gaze; then he resumed his previous occupation of staring out across the rail at the illimitable expanse of rolling sea.
Lafayette Smith smiled, opened a book, settled himself more comfortably in his chair and proceeded to forget all about his discourteous neighbor.
Later that day Danny saw the young man at the swimming pool and was impressed by one of the few things that Danny could really understand—proficiency in a physical sport. The young man far outshone the other passengers both in swimming and diving, and his sun bronzed body evidenced long hours in a bathing suit.
The following morning when Danny came on deck he found that the young man had preceded him. 'Good morn ing,' said Danny pleasantly as he dropped into his chair. 'Nice morning.'
The young man looked up from his book. 'Is it?' he asked and let his eyes fall again to the printed page.
Danny laughed. 'Right back at me, eh?' he exclaimed. 'You see I thought youse was one of them high hat guys. Then I seen you in the tank. You sure can dive, buddy.'
Lafayette Smith, A.M., Ph.D., Sc.D., let his book drop slowly to his lap as he turned to survey his neighbor. Presently a smile stole across his face—a good natured, friendly smile. 'Thanks,' he said. 'You see it is because I like it so well. A fellow who's spent as much time at it as I have ever since I was a little shaver would have to be an awful dub not to be fairly proficient.'
'Yeah,' agreed Danny. 'It's your racket, I suppose.'
Lafayette Smith looked about the deck around his chair. He thought, at first, that Danny was referring to a tennis racquet, as that would be the thing that the word would connote to the mind of so ardent a tennis enthusiast as he. Then he caught the intended meaning and smiled. 'I am not a professional swimmer, if that is what you mean,' he said.
'Pleasure trip?' inquired Danny.
'Well, I hope it will be,' replied the other, 'but it is largely what might be called a business trip, too. Scientific investigation. I am a geologist.'
'Yeah? I never heard of that racket before.'
'It is not exactly a racket,' said Smith. 'There is not enough money in it to raise it to the importance and dignity of a racket.'
'Oh, well, I know a lot of little rackets that pay good—especially if a fellow goes it alone and doesn't have to split with a mob. Going to England ?'
'I shall be in London a couple of days only,' replied Smith.
'I thought maybe you was goin' to England .'
Lafayette Smith looked puzzled. 'I am,' he said.
'Oh, you're goin' there from London ?'
Was the young man trying to kid him? Very good! 'Yes,' he said, 'if I can get permission from King George to do so I shall visit England while I am in London .'
'Say, does that guy live in England ? He's the fellow Big Bill was goin' to punch in the snout. Geeze, but there is one big bag of hot wind.'
'Who, King George?'
'No, I don't know him—I mean Thompson.'
'I don't know either of them,' admitted Smith; 'but I've heard of King George.'
'You ain't never heard of Big Bill Thompson, mayor of Chicago ?'
