Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

140 I had given him should start his brain working normally. ‘Tell me, first.” “All right. Everything they do is done by telepathy. Once a month the novices bring in the camels with the supplies and the ten fresh girls from Urga. They must be paid for. On the tenth day—everything goes by tens— comes a message from the Unseen One. They go out to the lake. He babbled for a moment in his strange tongue. I sat there, absolutely astounded by what I was hearing. Then I recollected that the man might be lying. He might be repeating the wild legends which I had heard often. “What lake?” I asked craftily. “The round lake where cliffs go down straight?” He rose to the bait nobly, while his red- rimmed eyes shifted from side to side. “No, no! The lake where they have purple mists with the odor of violets, which put men to sleep. The Ten go to sleep there. When they waken, they find the fishes singing to the dawn, and on the shore the jewels and gold. Give me more, more!” I was so utterly taken aback that I gave him the other half-pellet. Good Lord! This man was actually improv- ing on the wild legend—singing fishes! That was something new. “Fishes can’t sing,” I said. “It’s impossible.” “They do. Vve heard them,” he mumbled away. “Kilgore is a scientist. He said that they have an arrangement of the gills that makes sound in the air. They leap from the water and sing. They are a distinct race. So are the men there, the Ten; they come from the tribe in the valley. It is between the Sayan and the Khangais ranges, at the headwaters of the Kem, and the city of whirling sands lies around the ‘temple. I saw a palace come up out of the sand, but it was gone again next morning before Kilgore could explore.” “And Hat Shui?” “He came to kill me because I had escaped,” exclaimed Death with more animation. “TI had been forced to enter the novitiate, you know, before Kilgore came. So Hat Shui came after me and ran me down. But I was too smart for him, too smart!” The old devil chuckled evilly. “T sent him to hell. And then I got a message from the Ten. They knew he was dead already, ten minutes afterward. ‘They willed me——” He broke off and said no word more. His eyes had cedsed to rove about. This sign gave me some alarm because I knew his brain was at work now; the drug had reached the stomach. How I regretted giving even that tiny pill! Now my time was running short with him. “Wait here,’ I said, secing no sign of a» policeman about. “T’ll befback in a minute and give you the whole box of opium-pills. Just a minute.” He made no sign, but I saw his eyes fastened Es Adventure on me. Was it my imagination that told me there was recognition in those eyes, and the recrudescence of a terrible, dominant spirit? Was it imagination which showed new life flooding back into this old babbler? I HURRIED away, cursing my folly, I went directly to the street, opposite the St. Francis, and paused at the Looking back, I saw James Death sitting there exactly as I had left him, Confident that he would not leave, I glanced around. Just across the street was an officer, swinging down toward the hotel. I hurried toward him, caught his eye and beckoned. He met me at the curb. “Come over here with me,” I commanded. “There’s an old hophead sitting on the bench here who’s been telling me about a murder he committed the other day. You’d better take him along and see——” “You bet,” said the policeman. comer. ~ We recrossed the street and started down the path. A stab of dismay seized me. The hench was empty. I swore and then darted forward at a run, James Death was not in sight. I stopped to question one or two loungers, who had seen nothing of the man. It seemed impossible that Death could have gotten out of there so quickly. Gone he was, however, and the cop favored me with a fine suspicious scrutiny when we gave up the chase and separated. How I cursed my folly. All the cards in my hand, and I had played them like an arrant fool! I dropped on the nearest bench, feeling the ass that I was. James Death had not known me at all, had never guessed that I could be Day. Lack of opium had left him all unstrung, his brain a dazzled whirl of desire, his body a helpless wreck. He was mine for the taking in that moment, mine to bring before a police court; he would have confessed the whole business like a shot. Instead of doing the obvious thing, I had sat: there and chattered about the Ten Drome- daries, carried away by the things he mumbled in my ear. Now, too late, I realized that he had told the truth, and that Kilgore would have told me the same story had he been given time the previous evening. The truth! I sat up, staring at the greenery with wide eyes. Then this place actually exist- ed—was no figment of the imagination. This Death was a Russian, a man of education. The Ten had bought his services, and once at the lamasery he had been forced into its permanent service. A useful man, as his late actions bore witness. Then Kilgore had come, had found the place of legend. The Russian had fought with him over a girl, had joined him to betray him, had been finally beaten—and had got ECOPMICLOO© (E@)