Adventure Magazine Cover — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

The Temple of the Ten diameter. Half-way down from the rim, on all sides, were the Mongols into whose trap his treacherous guides had led him. They numbered a dozen. A strange ending for a man learned in an- cient lores and forgotten tongues, a scholar revered by Sinologues and ethnic students alike. Here he lay in a little gray rocky bowl, all his world shrunk down to this; the man of wisdom had become a primitive barbarian who sought only to slay before he_ himself was slain. Ignorant of the huge riches within his brain, they would murder | him for the trifle of worldly pelf he had left, and would leave that brain to the birds. Sheer wasteful destruction—the young world’s way. From here and there about the indrawing circle of death muskets and rifles banged, bullets or slugs whirred above the central figure. Severn lay motionless, waiting until his final two cartridges might tell most ef- fectually. bloodshot blue eyes to the rim of his little horizon. | Now he saw what he deemed a mirage, a hallucination. For, limned there against the blazing sky, sharp and distinct in every detail, he saw a group of six men who stood and watched him. Five of them were bearded mer in khaki, topped by rakish turbans; those turbans gave back a sun- glitter of steel, and Severn knew the steel for the turban-rings of Sikh troopers. Sikh troopers—here! The sixth man was a white man, also in khaki, and all six were calmly gazing down as-if awaiting the end of this butchery. A croaking laugh broke from Severn. The laugh died out in a gasp of startled surprize. The white man had raised his hand in a gesture of command. At this gesture the Sikhs lifted their rifles and fired. Real men, real rifles! More than this, from other quarters came an answering crackle of rifle- fire. Severn turned his head and saw other parties of men at the rim of the sunken ° basin, firing downward. A reechoing swirl of frantic yells broke up from the bouldered waste. Here and there leaped out Mongols, filthy, skin-clad figures. They scurried from here and yon, all trying -to'reach the cluster of tethered ponies. Some dropped. The rifle-fire from the rim of the bow] was an irregular but continuous crackle. ‘Severn rose to his feet, trembling a little. And as he waited he lifted \ 135 He lifted his rifle, forced his hands into steadiness and fired twice; the last brace of his treacherous guides fell to the bullets. Then Severn took out his pipe, took out the pinch of tobacco wrapped in a squill of silk that he had preserved for two weeks, and filled his pipe. | He watched, sucking the unlighted pipe, for he had no light. Three of the Mongols reached the ponies; the others were dead. These three made a frantic effort te escape out of the bowl, but for them there was no escape. Bullets brought down their horses. Bullets killed them as they came to their feet again. That party was wiped out to the last man, mercilessly, efficiently, with a cold precision which startled Severn. Who were these rescuers?, Had he gone suddenly mad, or was this reality? He sat down on the fore-shoulder of the camel. The three parties of men were coming down from the rim of this little world, but the closest was that . which he had first seen. He stared at the white man who strode ahead of the Sikhs—a tall, ruggedly handsome type with the chopped- off angular jaw that bespoke south-of- England blood. Recognition dawned in the eyes of Severn; he had met this man somewhere in the past. Ah, yes! At the Naval Club. in Weihaiwei a year or so ago; it seemed centuries. He remembered the chap now. “Hullo, Kilgore!’”’ he exclaimed as his res- cuercameup. ‘You haven’t a match, have you?” ta 3 “Upon my word—it’s Severn!’’ Kilgore’s hand shot out. ‘Man, I didn’t recognize you! Where’s the rest of your crowd?” Kilgore produced a match-box. Severn lighted his pipe and answered curtly— a ead.’’ “No, not these chaps.”’ Kilgore frowned slightly. “I mean the party you went up- country with; Mrs. Severn, the Jansen brothers and old Tom Fellows the botanist. No word has come through from any of you for months. I never dreamed you were up this way. At last reports your expedition was around Kashgar.”’ Severn met the warm smile of Kilgore with impassive features. Then he kicked at the rotting camel twice. “This,” he said reflectively, “is what's left. And me.” Kilgore started. The profound melan- choly of those words affrighted him. He 0)(0 (0) An) (9) (EO) CS (C©)