Adventure Magazine Cover — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

170 The young thug slipped aside into a cat- tle path and ran swiftly up the slope to the castle, picking his way easily in the bright moonlight. Avoiding the bulk of the castle, he threaded the jungle to the side of the old tank that peered up at him from its malevolent shadow. Here Hossein went more cautiously, keeping an eye out for the giant cobras that livéd in the ruin. He did not meet any, however, nor did a sentinel of Dom Gion challenge him. Somewhat surprized, he felt his way into the corridor, calling softly: “Tala, Tala! Itis I, Hossein. I am come as I promised.” Finding that only silence answered him, he knelt, striking steel upon flint and kind- ling tinder taken from his girdle. Lighting a candle, he surveyed the chamber that had been the prison of the Rajput girl for the past two months. It was empty. Hossein muttered under his breath and ran into the quarters of the Portuguese half-caste. He knew that if Tala was ab- sent Dom Gion must be gone from his room. The jemadar had not loved Tala as Hossein loved her. Rather, Dom Gion had cher- ished her as he might a favorite snake, as if he were keeping her for some object other than his own desire. Hossein had made sure of this by jealous watching. Moreover, that afternoon he had found opportunity to whisper to the girl that— while the thugs and the men of Bhir were at the castle and the ‘amasha was in progress —he would take her away, on his horse, from Bhir to Agra where she would have comfortable quarters and jewels and rich silk garments. It was a risk, but the thug did not weigh that against possession of Tala. Hossein had mustered up courage to do this. Had he not strangled the boy that had been. Tala’s brother with his own hand by order of Dom Gion, unknown to her? Had his men not driven away the cattle and sold them in another village? And slain Chee- too? This, according to the strict laws of the thugs, gave him.a claim upon the woman that Dom Gion had taken for himself. Desire to possess the girl had decided him at last to risk flight from Bhir. Was he not strong and young? True, it was only when | under the influence of the bhang that Dom Gion plied her with, that Tala spoke kindly Adventure to Hossein. But he fancied that the use of the drug had dulled her memory of her father, and that if he took her from Bhir, she would turn to him. : As for the Rajput, Hossein had no appre- hension. Dom Gion would take care of Rawul Singh and Malcolm sahib as well. But now the nest was empty and the bird had flown. MHossein’s dark face twisted with the hot anger of the young Moslem whose desires are his fulfilment of life and whose enmities are his religion. He strode the chamber of Dom Gion, peering sout vindictively, and fearing that the half-caste had harmed the girl. But the room with the cot was empty. Hossein’s eye fell on the curtain that veiled the closet and temptation surged into his breast. No one other than the jemadar knew what was within there. He would look within and see the god to which Dom Gion prayed—a god that was all-powerful, since its servant was all-powerful in Bhir. Very cautiously he parted the curtain, fearing the snakes that Dom Gion said were there. He saw no snake nor any image of Kali. loot. He had not known that his master, who assumed the aspect of poverty, had treasured so much of the spoils of thuggt. It did not occur to Hossein to rob his master as he might easily have done. It is one of the ethics of thuggi that the spoils of each member of the clan are inviolate. But Hossein’s heart swelled at the knowl- edge that Dom Gion had no god. There was no divinity that gave him power, not Kali the deity of the thugs—and Hossein -was'a devout servant of the woman-god. “Ohai,”’ he muttered. ‘So, my master sought to keep the eyes of men from his treasure by fear. Well, I fear him no longer.” The thought of Tala returned swiftly to his agitated mind and the boy turned to run out of the chamber in the rock and up into the jungle. Dom Gion, he knew, had gone to the castle and where he was the Rajput girl must be. Slipping noiselessly from the under- growth, Hossein climbed the débris of the crumbling rampart until he could see upon the terrace where a score of torches flick- ered in the hot wind of the night, adding their glow to the pallid radiance of the moon. In a serried half-circle sat the men of COmiclbook Instead, Hossein glimpsed vast | ©