Adventure Magazine Cover — page 175: what you’re looking at

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

The Village of the Ghect there was nothing abeut them to suggest assassins. “I would like to, but it is for- bidden. Allah be with you. I go my own way.” Théy persisted in urging him to dismount and pressed around him. The Afghan’s beard bristled and he touched spurs to his tired horse. When he had gone on a way he looked back and found the merchant caval- cade staring after him. “Ya Allah!” muttered the khan. were thugs.” He shared the knowledge, common among natives of India, of the secret slavers of the highway. He knew that they followed their trade only when unwatched; that they slew only when the omens vouchsafed by Kali were propitious, and that they killed by strangling. Very rarely did they use other weapons; moreover they were accustomed to choose certain spots for the assassination and travel with the victim until the appointed place was reached, where they could bury their victims at once. More than one courier from Bhir, he knew, lay under the grass by the Jumna highway and he suspected that the body of a sahib-magistrate of Bhir had been cast into the Jumna after the Englishman had im- prudently joined company with a party of mild-appearing merchants. So that evening Ali Khan said his pray- ers devoutly, alone. The next day brought no signs of thugs and he knew that he was no longer followed. Throughout the night he rode, resting his horse at intervals. Dawn brought the sight of Agra’s tow- ers, and relief to the heart of the chit-bearer. A few hours more would bring him to the cantonment of Cunningham sahib, where he could sleep, eat and boast his fill. “Va Allah,” he muttered, satisfied. ‘I am out of the snake’s nest. At the dawn prayer I will give thanks g He reined in beside a group of mournful- looking Moslem soldiers who were burying one of their companions in a grave by the road. The body was cleanly robed in white cloth, but the survivors stood disconsolately by, a Koran in their hands. . seeing Ali Khan dismount and wash at a “They brook by the grave and prepare his carpet for prayer, one of them approached him and asked if he could read from the Koran. “May I strangle if I can’t read like a mul- lah,” responded the Afghan. 165 He understood that they could not read, nor repeat the burial formula over the body of their mate. They asked him if he would do so. “I would be a dog if I did not, and my beard would be defamed,” acknowledged the big warrior frankly. “Besides, I owe such a kindness, for my life has been miracu- lously spared.” He cleansed his hands anew, took the Koran and knelt on the cloth by the body and the grave. As custom prescribed he laid aside his weapons, and two of the party knelt beside him. In a sonorous voice Ali Khan began to repeat the burial service. In a moment a sash was passed about his neck from be- hind, the two men at his side grasped his arms and he was strangled silently. Then his big body was tumbled into the grave; the man who had taken the part of the dead Moslem rose. A caravan of trad- ers came into sight from Agra at that in- stant and the thugs, perceiving it, began to complete the burial service over Ali Khan. Before the last camel of the caravan had passed the erstwhile soldiers had filled in the grave and Malcolm’s messenger had passed from the sight of men. Onlv when the thugs took a folded paper from his tur- ban did the act excite interest on the part of the passers-by on the caravan. ‘Why do you take aught from the dead?” some one on the caravan asked. “Tt is a message to his people—his last message,’ explained the young thug who had impersonated the body and who pos- sessed a sense of humor. THE thug who had secured the chit ie stripped Ali Khan's horse of its sil- ver saddle-trappings and mounted, forcing the nearly exhausted beast to gallop back along the Jumna trail. His compan- ions remained behind, to light a fire—now that the caravan was out of the way—on the grave, thus obliterating the traces of a burial. The weapons of Ali Khan they divided among themselves. It was nightfall of the second dav when the thug messenger—Hossein, by name, a bhutote—strangler—of the Bhundulkhand clan of Jumna—arrived at the outskirts of Bhir. Instead of entering the village. Hos- sein slowed down to a walk and took a cattle path away from the highway. After following this a short distance up COmiclbook C©