Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section 7 SCARLET WEDDING DRESS Gathering the scarlet dress into a wet ball, he rammed it between the open jaws and dived swiftly. HEM MINSKI, the little dark Russian from Papua, squatted at the head of the Caradoc’s gang way and nibbled a dry sea biscuit. A tattered sarong was drawn about his waist. On his grimy, fish-soiled forefinger a diamond ring, inset with pearls, gleamed in the tropic sunlight. Captain Hayes sprawled in a hammock under the schooner’s ample sun-awning. Only for the lazy drift of cigar smoke from his half- closed lips one might have fancied him overcome by the noonday heat. Finishing the biscuit, Minski combed his black beard with talon-like finger nails and then looked up at the white man in the hammock. “I have made two offers and you still refuse; therefore we go our ways.” He stood up and peered bird-like down the steep gangway that led to the jetty. “Three thousand dollars,” he said with a back glance at the hammock. Captain Hayes sat up and yawned. “ You think, Shem, because I own a few cutlasses and an old German machine-gun that I’m ready to fight a ship manned by Japanese thieves and vagabonds. Three thousand dollars won’t give me a new schooner if this one is blown from under me!” The Russian pondered his words nodding and combing with his lean black fingers. “The hazard is small,” he said at last. “Captain Sonag and his- brother, Okahu, are thieves but not fighting men. Two shots from your little gun would settle it. If there is damage to your schooner I will surely pay!” Hayes beamed suddenly. “That settles it, Shem, my boy. Now,” he skipped lightly from the ham mock casting his cigar over the rail; “tell us about this derned Sumatran wedding gown. Captain Sonag, I understand, stole it from a tender in Penang when it was being transshipped to San Francisco?” The Russian paused on the sun-heated gangway, his black, diamond lit forefinger caressing his strag gling chin-tuft. “I have promised you three thousand for the ven ture—and repairs. There is no need to tell the his tory of this red nuptial garment. It belonged to the Princess Lalanga of Sombaya.” Minski paused and drew a cigarette from a box hidden in the greasy folds of his sarong. Hayes fol lowed his movements with some curiosity, his eyes kindling strangely. “The Princess Lalanga was murdered on the day of her wedding,” he vouchsafed. “There was a report, in the Sydney papers, that she had been strangled with the folds of her wedding dress.” The Russian blinked and stared at the cluster of low roofed huts that fringed the near beach of Vanua harbor. “Lalanga was an evil woman,” he said icily. “Two seasons before she sent the head of her brother to the Sultan Maharanga in return for a small rubber con cession in Palembang. The strangling was a mere act of justice,” Shem observed dreamfully. “Many headmen were suspected, but . . . the dress van ished until—” “This Captain Sonag clawed it up at Penang,” Hayes interrupted. “ What’s he going to do with it? ” The Russian shrugged his lean shoulders. “That is Sonag’s affair. He may sell it for a few hundred dollars to some American curio-hunter. It is a gaudy thing with imitation rubies on the collar. It has no value except that I knew and suffered La- langa’s wrath . . . once.” Captain Hayes laughed hoarsely. “You want a piece of the silk that squared your account, eh, Shem? ” The little black Russian responded with a bleak glance in the big white Captain’s direction, then, breathing a few final words of advice, hobbled down the schooner’s gangway to the straggling line of native huts on the beach. Hayes had known him as a buyer of sandal wood and rubber, a thrifty little speculator who lived in a wind-rattled bungalow somewhere on the outskirts of Vanua. Hayes surmised that the Russian had suffered some indignity in the past at the hands of the murdered Princess Lalanga and was anxious, no doubt, to possess the flamboyant garment which had been the cause of her destruction. Captain Sonag, the man who had stolen the dress, was at that moment on his way to the little Papuan port accompanied by his brother Okahu, a notorious shell-diver, well known to the Queensland police. Their schooner had been chartered from a firm of ship-breakers in Shanghai, and it was evident to Hayes that, after leaving Vanua, the adventurous pair intended visiting Sydney or San Francisco. The Scarlet Wedding Dress would be of small value save as a gloomy relic of Laianga’s fate, Hayes thought. His own money chest was at low ebb, and if, by a sudden descent on Sonag’s schooner, he could seize the scarlet robe Minski’s $3,000 would clear most of his debts in Vanua and replenish his stores. In all his dealings with the little Russian, Hayes had found him a scrupulous and faithful bargainer. Shortly after midnight the schooner Caradoc drew anchor and slipped quietly from Vanua harbor steer ing a S. E. course in the direction of Long Reef island. Sonag was due at Vanua within eight or nine hours, but Hayes deemed it advisable to intercept him near Long Reef island beyond signalling distance of the Chilian gunboat which lay at anchor near the Peru vian Consulate. The Caradoc rolled in the long Pacific swell, her crew moving like shadows about the slim-throated gun for’rd. Hayes heard the low thunder of breakers before the first streaks of day had whitened the near east. Long Reef island lay somewhere under the cloud heaps in the far west. The sun rose from a saffron-belted sky stretching its sword flames over the empty wastes of sea. Hayes* binoculars focussed the knife-edge horizon suddenly where the outline of a vessel’s yards seemed to slant and veer undecidedly. The Caradoc held to her course until the morning was well advanced and the outline became a fore-and- aft rigged schooner steering N. E. for Vanua. Dimly Hayes read the name Isthumi on her bows. He grinned silently as he gained the bridge. “Funny how these Japs hold to a given track!*’ he declared to his first mate Emery. “If they’d gone a couple of points east they’d have missed me!” He spoke again to the men in the Caradoc’s fore part and with scarcely an effort the small, slim- throated gun was run out to the open port. Foot by foot the Isthumi drew nearer and then as if by magic changed her course to a sou’-westerly one. Hayes waited until the Caradoc lay over in her wake, then leaning from the bridge spoke to the sullen-browed mate beside the gun. A scarf of flame leaped from the open port; the mate straightened from his bent position as the shot ploughed the wash about the Isthumi’s foot. Hayes scowled at the gunners. “If you’re trying to shoot the blamed sunrise you’d better quit, my lads. I mentioned that derned schooner ahead!” He half turned from the bridge rail, then, with a sudden oath, bent low beside the wheel house. A puff of white fell away from the Isthumi’s stern, a roaring bolt of steel struck with a sudden jar into the Caradoc’s hull. The hundred-and-fifty-ton schooner quivered under the impact, then continued her course a point or two nearer the wind. The mate looked over the side, his face congested with anger. “A foot above the waterline!” he shouted. “ Blank shell about the size of a coffee pot, one of those cheap German things!” The Isthumi veered from her course suddenly and then with a rattling of blocks and spars hove to in the track of the onrushing Caradoc. Hayes leaned from the bridge rail, his white teeth showing through the rift in his beard. “There are eight or nine gunners in her waist!” he called out to the mate. “Don’t fire. They want to hear us yap and explain things.” Hcreat the Isthumi began a series of rapid signals. Hayes read them quickly, his eyes dilating in evident surprise and amazement. “They want me to go aboard!” he said to the mate. “They’re apologizing too for the derned bunco shell they fired!” A boat was lowered from the Caradoc, and Hayes, accompanied by a couple of deckhands, was rowed silently towards the Isthumi. The sound of wrang ling voices reached them as they neared the lowered gangway. - The squat figure of the Jap skipper was plainly visible, his fists clenched in the faces of his sombre-visaged gunners. It was evident that some thing in the nature of a breach of discipline had oc curred amongst them. He hurried to the gangway head at sound of the approaching boat, his thick broad shoulders stiffened instinctively. Hayes’ glance leaped to the 4-inch howitzer in the stern as he mounted the gangway. There was no sign of ammunition about the deck, a fact which puzzled him exceedingly. The Jap ad vanced and saluted. “You have no warrant to make war on me,” he began sternly. “What matters of bellicose are there between us?” Hayes grinned in spite of himself. “Your shell’s made a hole in my schooner, Captain Sonag. I merely signalled foryou to heave to and you promptly plugged me!” Sonag flung out his arms passionately in the direc tion of his crew. “Nagiro and Tamisho fired (Continued on page 16)