Adventure Magazine Cover — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

160 that Rawul Singh and Cheetoo were dream- ing away as usual, just outside. Malcolm reached for a pistol quietly and lav passive. The only other opening in the walls of his room was the broken aperture of a round window from which many stones had fallen away. Through this he could see clearly the panoply of stars over the blur of the jungle. On this opening he focused his attention, for the sound had come from that quarter. Several of the stars were blotted out. Malcolm sat up silently and raised his pistol. He waited, scarcely breathing, for what seemed many moments; and then the faint light from the round window was darkened further. Malcolm was puzzled. He had expected that the object, whatever it might be, that had come into the opening would continue its progress within his room. Instead, an- other object had appeared in the window. Resolved to investigate, the Scot slipped from his bed and moved to the door in his stocking feet. At once Rawul Singh’s heavy breathing ceased and the white man was aware of the Rajput standing beside him‘in the dark. “Some one is outside,” whispered Mal- colm. ‘“Come.” He felt that the Rajput accompanied him along the hall, to the gate of the castle— the way being familiar to both. Stepping _ cautiously out on the terrace, they examined the wall without result until Rawul Singh drew a quick breath and grasped the arm of the white man. “Above, sahib,” he eae “look at the tower.” Twenty feet overhead a figure stood on the summit of the square tower, outlined against the stars in the faint light of a new moon. Malcolm saw arms raised to the sky and the arms were knitted to the body like those of a bat. The head appeared very small compared to the grotesque body. Malcolm shivered, believing for the mo- ment that he was looking at a man in the formofabat. Tales of were-wolves that he had heard in his youth in Scotland flitted into his mind; he thought of the Witches’ Sabbath and the night when evil spirits cast themselves into the air from a great height. “A bat,” he whispered. Checking the momentary play of imagi- nation, due to his weakened condition, he ordered Rawul Singh to stand watch on the Adventure terrace while he went into the tower. It was built, as was generally the case in fifteenth century structures in Rajputana, against the corner of the castle and a postern door opened into it from within the front passage of the main building. There was but the one door and through a window Malcolm could see the tall form of Rawul Singh watching from the terrace below. Up the stairs he went, pistol in hand, his heart beating heavily. The circular stairs were narrow and Mal- colm was sure no one could have passed him. Yet when he stood on the tower sum- mit it was vacant and there was no sign of the visitor of the night. “Tf it was a bat,” growled Rawul Singh, “it flew away, sahib, as you climbed up. It vanished into the air.”’ Disturbed, the Scot did not sleep again that night, and with the first light of dawn he inspected the tower anew. He was con- vinced that nothing could have got by him on the steep stairs, nor was there any open- ing in the wall by which the apparition might have leaped to the terrace unheard— if that had been possible—by the Rajput. One thing attracted his attention, and that was a portion of vine displaced from its hold on the stone upon the side of the tower away from where Rawul Singh had stood— the side of the tower that had been in deep shadow the night before. The Rajput tested the strength of the vines and found that they broke under his light weight. “Tt was not thus, sahib, ” he shook his head, “that the demon came down.” “Yet he must have come down,” pointed out Malcolm irritably. ‘How long had he been gone from the tower top before I reached it?”’ Rawul Singh considered. ‘The space of time that a man might hold his breath without pain. That I know well, for I held mine until I saw thee. Neverthe- less the time would not suffice for the bat”’ —so the old man chose to think of the visitor of the night before—‘‘to escape out of the tower through the door within the castle before thy coming.” “So, you saw me look out of the window half-way up the stair?” ‘““Nay, how could I see through the shadow that was like a cloak?” The explanation of the Rajput worked dogically enough in its own bent. Since the COmiclbook CO