Adventure Magazine Cover — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

Guns of the Gods properly respectful distance by his “eater- of-all-that-was-unnamable.” Then the princess walked through the parlor to the deeply cushioned window-seat, outside which the commissioner sat quite alone with Mrs. Blaine, trying to pull strings whose existence is not hinted at in blue books. Yasmini from earliest infancy pos- sessed an uncanny gift of silence, sometimes even when she laughed. 7 NO TRESPASS! HERE’S comfort in the purple creed - Of rosary and hood; There’s promise in the temple gong, And hope (deferred) when evensong Foretells a morrow’s good; There’s rapture in the royal right To lay the daily dole In cash or kind at temple-door, Since sacrifice must go before The saving of a soul. The priests who plot for power now, Though future glory preach, Themselves alike the victims fall Of law that mesmerizes all— Each subject unto each— _ . Though all is well if all obey And all have humble heart, Nor dare to hold in curséd doubt Those gems of truth the church lets out; But where’s the apple-cart, And where’s the sacred fiction gone, And who’s to have the blame When any upstart takes a hand ~ And, scorning what the priests have planned, Plays Harry with the game? CHAPTER III “Give a woman the last word always; but be sure st is a question, which you leave unanswered.” E WAS a beau-ideal commissioner. The native newspaper said so when he first came, having painfully selected the phrase from a “Dictionary of Polite En- glish for Public Purposes” edited by a col- lege graduate (at present in the Anda- mans). ' True, later it had called him an ‘“‘over- bearing and insane procrastinator,” ‘an apostle of absolutism,’”’ and—plum of all literary gleanings, since it left so much to the imagination of the native reader— “laudator temporis acti.”” But that was be- cause he had withdrawn his private sub- scription prior to suspending the paper sine die under Paragraph So-and-so of the Act for Dealing with Sedition; it could not be held to cancel the correct first judgment, ‘eny more than the unmeasured early praise 17 had offset later indiscretion. Beau ideal must stand. It was not his first call at the Blaines’ house, although somehow or other he never contrived to find Dick Blaine at home. As a bachelor he had no domestic difficulties to pin him down when office work was over for the morning, and, being a man of hardly more than forty, of fine physique, with an astonishing capacity for swift work, he could usually finish in an hour before break- fast what would keep the routine rank and . file of orthodox officials perspiring through the day. That was one reason why he had been sent to Sialpore—men in the higher ranks, with a pension due them after cer- tain years of service, dislike being hurried. He was a handsome man—too handsome, some said—with a profile like a medallion of Mark Antony that lost a little of its strength and poise when he looked straight at you. A commissionership was an ap- parent rise in the world, but Sialpore has the name of being a departmental cul-de-sac, and they had laughed in the clubs about “Trish promotion” without exactly naming Judge O’Mally. (Mrs. O’Mally canie from a cathedral city where distaste for the con- ventions is forced at high pressure from early infancy.) But there are no such things as political blind alleys to a man who is a judge of '‘in- discretion, provided he has certain other unusual gifts as well. Sir Roland Samson, K.C.S. I., was not at all a disappointed man, nor even a discouraged one. Most people were at a disadvantage com- ing up the path through the Blaines’ front garden. There was a feeling all the way of being looked down on from the veranda . that took ten minutes to recover from in the warmth of Western hospitality. But Samson had learned long’ ago that appearance was all in his favor, and he re- inforced it with beautiful buff riding-boets that drew attention to firm feet and manly bearing. It did him good to be leeked at, and he felt, as a painstaking gentleman should, that the sight did spectators no harm. “All alone?” he asked, feeling sure that Mrs. Blaine was pleased to see him, and shifting the chair beside her as he sat down, in order to see her face better. ‘Husband in the hills as usual? I must choose a Sun- day next time and find him in.” Tess smiled. She was used to the remark. COPMiE KOOKS (El)