Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 186: what you’re looking at

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

Me ad PE RRSP A PS a as YD an te PK ae aA Per we TS Paes a» ew, f 1384 moved, in the welcome darkness of the trees, around that area. But a natural phenome- non about the rice-paddy stirred my brain. On account of the marshy nature of the paddy, will-o’-the-wisps flitted with weird glowings just above the rice reeds; and it seemed to me, such was my state of mind, that those floating lights were eyes, glowing eyes, eyes of the Poonan watching us, stalking us. A deal relieved was I, therefore, when we left that rice plot behind and stepped out, quite unexpectedly, upon a stretch of ave- nue which ran at right angles to the Avenue - of Palms, and seemed to intersect that avenue. We could not halt then. Like scared, impetuous lizards we slipped across that broad avenue into the blackness of a thick plantation of palm-trees beyond. But here I halted to look back. I never remembered having seen that avenue before, though I must have journeyed past it that day in going to and from the Dodo. I stopped Golden Feather of Flame with a hand upon the silken sleeve of her robe. I said: “But that avenue we have just crossed— itisnew tome. Are we right for the Dobo?”’ She turned quickly and put a finger on my lips. She whispered, and her whisper was an imperative command: “Do not speak! We must go in complete silence!” And she looked back across the wide stretch of avenue, ahead into the blackness of the palms, then to the right, then to the left—and all, covertly. I did the same. I did not know why; it was not the first time she had looked about her in that manner; but I did the same. WE MOVED on then in a complete silence. We moved slowly, cau- tiously, outfeeling our way with our hands, taking a certain deliberation in the placing of each step. For we were moving now through the blackness of that thick plantation of sago palms, the fernlike fronds of which hung low over our heads and shut out completely whatever little light there held in the night. Nowhere in that planta- tion was there a firefly or other speck of brightness to lift the Stygian gloom. I was handicapped by the burden of that rattan basket under my left arm, and yet I seemed to move more quickly than did my bride. For she paused often now, to peer about her, first to the right, then to the left. Adventure In the gloom, of course, I could hardly see her; she was in that purple robe, almost an indiscernible shadow; but still I knew that continually she was peering, now to the right, now to the left. She seemed obsessed by some kind of fear. I sought to hearten her. | : “Do not be afraid, my bride,” I said. “Tf there is any Poonan lurking about this night I will kill him! Before he can make a sound, with my bare hands, I will kill him!” I heard her voice then, low and tremulous, and close to my ear, as though she were afraid lest she should be overheard: ‘“fAh, it is no Poonan, no Poonan, I fear, Raj. It is—it is some one else—some one _who forever is abroad in the night!’ I said no more. I knew whom she meant, and what thoughts I had then I dared not give tongue to. Only a short while before she had said it was no time for speech; and now I felt it was indeed no time for speech. I felt, if anything, it was a time for action. My long .38 on its .45-frame, was heavy inmy belt. Yet I had thought all along it might as well not have been in my belt. T had thought I could not use it. There was a reason. If I used it, the report of it would arouse all the Poonan. It would arouse them, and even if I fired it into the thick of them, while it might scare them, in the end they would prove sure to be too many for me. : Now, however, at those words of my bride, my free right hand dropped to the butt of that revolver, protruding from my belt. I peered to the right, to the left. About me was nothing but blackness. And yet, continually I peered to the right, to the left. Grimly, the while, I held onto that revolver butt, protruding from my belt. We continued on. We continued on through that black mystery of palms; and then, altogether suddenly, we came to where the plantation ended in a broad field of opium poppies. On the far side of that broad open field was a great clump of tenuous tall bamboo, and beyond and above that clump, like some white cloud in the dark night, bulked the stone shape of the goal of our desperate errand—the monstrous half horse, - half woman of the Stone Dodo. I turned hur- riedly to Belun-Mea Poa-Poa, as she made to skirt around that poppy field among the palisading palms of the plantation. Eomicbooks (ECO) m