Adventure Magazine Cover — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

16 was trying to remember about that agent from the American Consulate; and I was following, with another part of my brain, the movements of a rickshaw which I had glimpsed through an open door of the pier, . going down the brilliantly sunlit street. ‘“‘He wasn’t an officer at all,’’ said Burns suddenly, as if he were trying to pin a fact where it could not get away from him. ‘“‘Who was he?” I asked, automatically, the picture of the white man with the nar- row black eyes at last emerging from the general confusion. ‘‘He had Chinese to ~help him, Burns.”’ ‘“‘HYe must have been a Tong-man,’ Burns dully. I thought this over for a considerable in- terval, and found it most reasonable. “Then,” I said, wishing that the agoniz- ing ache in my brain would allow me to say something really smart, “‘we’re prisoners of the Tae-ping Tong. That’s not nice, Burns. Burns!” He made no answer; and, reaching out and feeling his face, I found his eyes closed and his lips lax. He had lapsed comfort- ably back into unconsciousness; and I was so near it myself that I went on calling him by his name for some minutes, until my throat was sore, before I thought of return- ing to the expedient of dashing water in his face. And then as he began to show signs of consciousness my exertions proved too much for me, and I fell forward with my head on his shoulder. I suppose that the stupor following the smash on the base of my skull must have merged into normal sleep for I awoke, an incalculable time later, to find my head pil- lowed on Burns’ rolled-up tunic, and myself feeling hungry. And Burns, speaking from close at my side, announced that I’d been snoring like a good ’un. “How long have I been asleep?” I asked him; but he said he didn’t know, having only just woke up himself. His voice was clearer, and his replies were as much im- proved in rationality as were my questions. ) said I put my hand through the wall of black- | ness which enveloped me, and, as it touched him, he grasped it. “When you woke up,” he said, putting the general subject of dungeons and filth and looming death behind us, “I was just . going to strike a match. I’ve got a box, in a water-proof case.’’ He gave a sudden groan. “ , my head aches!” Adventure “Did they club you?” I asked, as I heard him pull off the lid of the tin match-box. “Did they not!” he replied. “You tell "em, phrenologist—I’ve got a bump.” That was Burns all over. He was about four years my senior—a big, dark six- footer with a twinkle in his black eyes that only the troubles of others—of Sylvia Par- sons, for instance—could extinguish. ‘“‘Get a complete map of the apartment in your mind before the match goes out,” he added, “‘noticing especially any fire-exits or similar devices. Ready? Fire!” The match flared up with what seemed to our eyes an extraordinary brilliance, and it was not until it was half consumed that we could stop blinking and examine our prison. - I myself was, further, too struck by the hor- rible state of Burns’ face, to do more than notice that the room was square and made of rough stone, before the light died out. He had said that he hada bump. Actu- ally, he had a cut running from side to side of his forehead; and his face, in its horrible patchwork of dark red and dead white looked more than anything like one of the Chinese masks in old Mandarin Campbell’s library. At the thought of that old devil, sitting in his chair three thousand miles away, gloating over the ill-gotten gold we were giving our lives to get for him, my courage seemed to break. “Did you see anything, Bill?’ asked Burns. “Only one thing,” I said hopelessly. “‘We’re done for.”’ “You’ve got kind of long-sight, haven’t you?” asked Burns, cheerfully. “Now, I can’t see as far ahead as that. All I could notice is that we’re imprisoned un- derground—the roof’s dripping, and that they don’t intend to maroon us here. The evidence is, that there’s a door about nor- nor-east of where I’m sitting, and that in front of it are two pitchers of water. Lord, ‘my head hurts! That boy must have hit me some wallop!” I was suddenly conscious of a burning thirst. “Where are the pitchers?” I asked, starting up. Burns grasped my arm. “Wait,” he said, ‘“‘we don’t know how long we're going to be here. Save ’em. And I saw something else, old son. I don’t want to raise your hopes unduly, but the wall op- posite to us isn’t of stone, but of wood. COMicasoo® S (©)