Adventure Magazine Cover — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

28 gone, and more. Seven remained. But there was no sign of a light. He sat down in the dark, trying to de- termine to return. ‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed aloud, and a dozen whispers came back to him mock- ingly. He searched after and found the thought which had been startled away— Why had he decided to seek straight ahead? He must have already gone farther than he had come during the night. Why, perhaps the missing entrance was to the left—within perhaps a few feet of the tunnel mouth! How foolish! He rose with renewed hope. Or the right? Ah! .Or the left front? Or the right front? Or perhaps there was a pas- sage through which he had blundered in the dark?’ Or possibly the cave mouth was blocked with stone or some sort of door? Possibilities dashed about». in his brain like disturbed bats in an old tower. “Oh, God!” “Od! ’Od! ’Od!” He clenched his teeth and began again. His feet hit something which tinkled fa- miliarly. He struck the last but one match. He saw the skeleton of a man who had evidently died in the dark, crouched against a stalagmite; already the shoulders were partially coated with the preserving calcium carbonate; beside him was an old-fashioned gun rusty and white. Dorsay blundered on, doggedly feeling his way. Distinctly he could make out sunlight, blessed sunlight. He shouted, in spite of the weird echoes, and ran. The sun was right over the tunnel shaft; and, sitting in the warmth was the lunatic gnawing a bone like an animal. ( DORSAY sat down in the sun feel- a ing slightly sick and giddy, yet glad of the heat after the damp of the cave. The man continued gnawing his bone, which Dorsay noticed he had taken rom an overset calabash near him, which had contained, bits of a half-cooked goat. But where had the food come from? Evidently it had been lowered from the shaft mouth by the fiber cord attached. The sight stirred natural hunger. and thirst. In the bright sun the man seemed just a poor witless soul who, as Dorsay ap- proached, giggled ingratiatingly. Naively unconscious in his plight of any civilized Adventure : tricks, Dorsay tore ort a piece of meat and bone and began to chew hungrily. The other prisoner grinned and wriggled like a friendly dog. Watching him as he ate, Dorsay realized that the ghastly shrieks and giggles during the night had had no malicious intent, but were the amicable gambols of a pup. Per- haps somewhere in the blighted man’s subconscious mind he recognized Dorsay as a fellow white and wished to express his pleasure in primitive fashion. But the idea depressed Dorsay; for dimly he saw what he too might become some day. As soon as he had finished eating his bone the fellow scrambled over to a fresh spot in the retreating sun-rays, curled up, and went to sleep. Dorsay, vainly attempting to work out a solution, sat sadly watching the curve of yellow sunshine mount the eastern side of the tunnel. Try as he would he could not find a feasible method of escape; not even the wildest project. He eyed the cord by which the food- gourd had been lowered, but the plaited fiber was far too fragile to bear a man’s weight even if he could succeed in attaching it to something that would catch on the rim of the tunnel. He had five cartridges in his revolver and twelve in his pocket: the rifle-cartridges still in his belt were, of course, useless. He decided to use nine of the former for as many days, at sunset, in the wild hope that the doctor might be near at hand. He had visions of (eine in wait until the savages came to lower the food, and trying to drop one. But what good would that do should he be successful? That wouldn’t help him to get out. He seemed doomed either to die of despair or become insane and live the life of a captive bear. The other prisoner was still sleeping and continued to do so all the afternoon. Dor- say almost felt violently angry with the man because he had lost his reason and could therefore not give him any information or even the companionship which he craved. He began to pace up and down the pit like one of the bears he had imagined. At last, feeling thirsty, he went inside the ghostly cave to drink from a pool, when an idea that already he was a primitive animal thrusting his snout into the water, sent him back to retain some of his human dignity with the aid of a broken calabash. CORICLOO© (E@)