Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

£50 girl and were carrying her gently down. Others had carefully raised the man and carricd him to the shade ofa tree. And beneath the tree the two lay motionless. The leader of the Kafirs, kneeling by the side of the man and bathing his head, shook his own head sadly. “‘Feele sebele,”’ he said mournfully. ‘“He’s very bad.” Blood poured from a fearfully ugly wound in the back of the scalp and on the forehead and neck were deep, long scratches where flesh was torn away. ““Feele, sebele,’ the Kafir said quite hopelessly. : The Kafir turned the white man over to the men with him and stepped over to the girl. Though still unconscious she didn’t appear to be bleeding much anywhere. For a few minutes he softly bathed her head, then felt her limbs and body for broken bones. But for the half-knee length Kafir shirt and her necklaces and bracelets she was quite nude. No bones apparently had cracked. But through the brown skin a huge, fast blackening space on her side where she had hit the rocks was getting more and more distinct. Several of the Kafirs had taken off the monkey and leopard-skins which they were wearing and had fastened them together. These they had now tied to two poles to form mechilas. Into the mechilas they care- fully lifted the two bodies. And sadly, almost reverently, they bore them back across the veld and up the steep hill into the kraal of Babiaan. ‘“‘A very bad concussion and terrille loss of blood,” the doctor explained to the old chief. “It will be weeks before he is up again. But with his wonderful constitution and strength he’ll pull through right enough. What glorious luck they missed his wind- yipe.”’ : The girl had already regained her senses, but it would be days before she, too, would be herself again. For the moment she lay with shattered nerves and tortured body silently crying to herself. “A few days’ rest, a few nights’ sleep,” the doctor told the chief, “and she'll get over it. She’s young yet and she isn’t so fragile as these white women.” And a week later she was up. Then like a devoted slave, a slave who owned, Charlie became her private property. Day and night she waited on the uncon- Adventure scious map. Not a movement of a finger but she was there to investigate. And never a man or woman but the old chief could even enter the hut without her show- ing her teeth like a little animal. From some strange place she brought a pair of .old trade-scissors, and with these, deftly as only a woman can, she’d cut his shoulder- long hair and trimmed his waving, strag- gling beard. And at night, if she slept, she lay stretched across the entrance to the white man’s hut. SIX weeks passed; seven weeks. The first morning of the eighth broke. Sadly, as was his wont, old Babiaan made his way to see his patient. Long ago had he completely given up hope of ever seeing him about again. Sadly the old man approached the en- trance—came within a few feet of it. Then stood as one suddenly rooted to the spot. “I’m going to get a horse and take you for a ride this morning,” a laughing girl’s voice was saying in Kafir. And a weak, yet hearty, man’s voice came back in Kafir. ‘You'd better not try it, you little imp.” With an effort the old man regained him- self, then with a glowing feeling in his heart he hobbled quickly inside. The brown girl, on one knee, was holding the white man up by the shoulders so that he could see out- side, and the man, intensely puzzled, obvi- ously was endeavoring to collect his thoughts and find out where he was. Quickly the old man stepped to the pile of blankets on the floor. “Succa bona, M’Lungu,”’ he said hap- ily. The white man looked at him as at a per- fect stranger. ““Sacca bona, madoda,” he greeted, but his eves showed clearly the struggle to recog- nize his visitor. “T am Babiaan,” the old man explained. But the eyes only stared back uncomprc- hendingly. Softly the girl smoothed out the make- shift pillows and placed them under the white man’s head and shoulders, then silently but smiling a smile of secret satis- faction, she left the hut. The old chief sat with his back to the wall and for several minutes looked steadily ai COmiclbook C©