Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 183: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Story of William Hyde I stretched out a hand and—I was that close to him then—grasped him by the cord that held his jawat. I caught him by that cord where it ridged over his backbone; but he was throwing himself bodily through the entrance at that moment and that cord snapped off in my hand. His jawat in my hand, the impetus of my desperate effort hurling me on, I slapped with a tremendous force up against one stone wall of the entrance, while he fell headlong through that entrance and down the nine stone stairs. I clung to that wall. My head seemed bursted like a balloon, my whole body was sick and shaken; but quickly, despite the whirling of my head, I made to follow him. For, at the foot of the stairs, he had stag- gered just then to his feet, shot a fearful look up at me, and was off, reeling and lurching, down the avenue. But a hand upon my arm stopped me. It was Golden Feather of Flame, who had sped up behind me. She held me back. _. “Do not go, do not go!”’ she cried, as if frightened at my rashness, “It is too late. You can not catch him. He knows the Jallan Batoe too well.” She was right. Already was the Gunner lost among the shadows of the palms and stones. I never could overtake him now. “But what will we do?” I asked, quite at a loss. “He knows about old Mohong. He may know about the god. I wanted to make him a prisoner like old Mohong—I mean, the old Adjie.”’ “Ssh!” she cautioned me. Then as she nodded her golden head she whispered: “Yes; I know what you wanted todo. But you should not have leaped at him as you did. That scared him. Even if he knew about that which is in the cave we might have coaxed him into the cave and then leaped upon him, and served him as we did the old Adjie. But you scared him away by leaping so.” I hung my head with a sense of shame. Surely enough, I saw now that I had blun- dered, had ruined the whole thing. But with a sudden thought I brightened. “He never saw the god!’ I said. ‘He did not cry out. And he would have cried out had he seen it. He could have seen it from within that entrance. But he never saw the god! His very face was not so expressive of fright and horror, as bewilder- ment and dismay. He had just come inside 181 the left-hand entrance when I glimpsed him. I did not give him time to see the god. He only saw old Mohong trussed up like a ham. He never saw the god!” “The great Deewa grant that it is as you say!’ she said fervently. “But if he has seen that which is upon the couch—” and her voice grew cold as steel again, icy—“‘if he has seen it, we will be made aware of that very soon. The Poonan will make us aware of that. All the Poonan will come here, and they will kill us both, without respect for our rank, without thought of mercy—with only that horrible brutality which is born of fear!’ She put a hand once more upon my sleeve. “Let us take it back, Raj/’’ she pleaded. “Let us put that which is upon the couch into the basket and together take it back tonight to the Stone Dobol’’ I looked at her as she stood there in the entrance, the torch held with one golden classic arm high above her head, its sputter- ing flame throwing a red glow over the raw gold of her hair; I looked into her greenish Egyptian eyes, begging up into mine with love and great fear; and I nodded. I was no fool. I was no fool like the kind you read about in stories. I had come into the Jallan Batoe for the Green, Green God; but I did not want the Green, Green God now. I had told Lip-Plak-Tengga that, and I meant that. I did not want to take the Green, Green God to the outer world. I did not want to go out into the outer world myself. For where in the outer world, even if I turned the Green, Green God into its worth in gold—where i in the outer world could I find, or buy, a paradise like that of the Jallan Batoe, a paradise where I was King, and where the bravest and most beautiful wo- man in all the world loved me? Suchloveas hers never was to be purchased. I grasped the slim hand that trembled upon my sleeve. I stood facing her, looking down at her. And thankfulness for the great love she was bestowing upon me swam mistily in my eyes then; and words of thankfulness, words of the very prayers I had tried to recall a short time before, rang echoingly through my mind. I grasped her hand. I grasped her hand at that moment, solemnly, humbly, for all the world as if we stood together, she and I, before some holy high altar. “Belun-Mea Poa-Poa,’ I said quite Eomichbooks (E(0) A gaa’ im