Adventure Magazine Cover — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

The Land maybe it was a fluke; and if so there was nothing to be got by proving eloquently that we were very much alive in the wood. Then from all sides rose shouts and cries and the swish of running men. I determined that they were all on the outskirts of the wood, and concluded that I’d best get back, snakes or no snakes. Doubling up, I made a run for it. I reckoned that they hadn’t seen me, for although a fusillade of shots sounded, none came anywhere near me. Where the denser forest began I pulled up and listened. They were making enough noise to scare the holy serpents, shouting orders, yelling exclamations and firing at random. I waited until the uproar had died down, and noted that not a single brave had made any attempt to enter the wood. Then I heard a voice crying: “Nay, nay, ’twas no infidel but a jinnee! Stop your firing lest we anger-him!” “As long as you keep that idea in your nut,” thought I, ‘‘I’m content.”’ However, now they’d probably sit in a bunch on the outside of the wood between me and the town. I’d either have to sit here or go back. I didn’t like either propo- sition; but finally, screwing up my courage, I decided to return and await Billy and Fieldmorre as best I could. Anyway I’d feel, I reckoned, less uncomfortable in the little corner we’d cleared than here in the dense undergrowth. I crept and crawled for some time with reluctance, just hating to keep my face on a level with a snake’s, and then, growing reckless, I stood up and began to crash blindly through the wood. Every time a damp creeper hit me on the face or hand I’d have a hard job not to vell. Whether snakes are given to swinging their tails from trees at night I couldn’t recollect, nor did I ever know whether I encountered half a hundred snakes on that trip or none at all. I had got, I reckoned, about half-way when something brought me up with a jerk—a curious wailing, dismal and plain- tive. [listened. I couldn’t make out what it could be. But it seemed familiar. A curious sound, like a beast whining and yet rising and falling in a weird lament. So interested was I that for the moment I forgot the snakes and began again to scout along. As I grew nearer I realized’ that the noise must come either from or near the ruins where we were encamped. of Ophir III I reached the ruined wall and peeped over. The wailing seemed to rise right underneath me. I climbed cautiously around, taking cover from place to place. Then I stopped with a gasp. In an open space within ten feet of the portico where we had camped, was a shrouded figure, and around him quite a dozen pythons, whose dancing necks I could see shimmering and glinting in the starlight. My one impulse was to bolt. But I held fast and mastered myself. Then I said to myself with a gasp. “Of course I know that darned row. It’s the Gandhi himself who’s making it with that reed thing. My ! What a chance!”’ The next impulse was to shoot. I brought down my rifle and reasoned: “That’s no earthly. Ill hold him up and make him prisoner; then we can dictate terms, his eyes!” Then the serpents struck my eye again. I shuddered; I couldn’t help it. What if Gandhi turned them on to me? For maybe two minutes, although it seemed to me an hour, I had to beat myself into doing what I planned, and I want to say that if ever I was a hero in my life it was right there. With my dry tongue scor- ing the roof of my mouth, and a feeling that I’d eaten half a ton of bad lobster, I crawled nearer—as near as I dared, to tell the truth, to those dancing snakes, while the wailing and whining continued. Then, dragging my eyes from the serpents to draw a bead against the light of his robes, and steadying my rifle comfortably on the top of a stele, I swallowed hard and called out clearly— “Put your hands up, Gandhi, or I'll drill you!” And I repeated it quickly in Arabic. The music ceased. The robes fluttered and the hands rose. ‘“‘Now send those things away; and if you turn ’em on me [ll plug you before they get me.”’ “They go, sir,” came a voice from the figure, which seemed less silky than I had remembered. As he spoke, the heads of the filthy beasts sank down and they began to glide away. One brute seemed to make direct for me, and had my prisoner known the agony 1 went through until it had passed me—with- in two feet as if unconscious of my pres- ence—he would have surely and success- fully made a dive for freedom. When I C@ DOOKS C@