Adventure Magazine Cover — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

The Land of Ophir stunt. ——, I’ve got the old admiral, but that don’t keep me awake o’ nights.” “Probably you’re right, Tromp,’ be- gan Fieldmorre, ‘‘although one hates to think u A wailing ‘‘All-ah” was shot to pieces by the sharp crack of a rifle. We listened, my gun on Sabah, who hadn’t turned a hair, or, rather, altered his gymnastic performance. Came a distant yell and erratic rifle-fire, which echoed across the lake into the mur- muring silence. “That’s Billy coming home,”’ said I with confidence. ‘‘I’ll bet he’s with me.”’ “Possibly,” acsured Fieldmorre. ‘You see it’s rather difficult to realize that a man who has served one so well and faithfully is not au fond faithful to you.” “Youre an optimist,” I argued politely, meaning to say an Englishman with a reluc- tant idea. “Anyway I’m not disguising that he may stick to you, but he isn’t any great shakes for Bully and me. If you ask me, he’s half-drunk now, and as soon as he gets the darned sultan’s job he’ll be as crazy as the other Gandhi guy. They all go that way.” “T still don’t think you’re right, Tromp. I know the man and you don’t.” sh you know the man!’ I retorted a trifle shortly. ‘You knew him so darned well that he betrayed us from the beginning to the end. I say, use him just the same as he intends to use us.” I felt more than a bit sore. I saw clearly enough that at the beginning Fieldmorre had been inclined to be just as rough with a traitor as I would have been myself. But the wily Sabah had just laid on the butter as thick as he knew how—until he kind of ran away with himself. But anyway it had been enough apparently to draw Fieldmorre. Maybe the ‘‘my-lord” business had got on my nerves; and perhaps, too, the deliberate way Sabah had snubbed me right along had made me mad. Maybe I was as wrong from one point of view as he was from the other, I thought. But that’s the way I saw it. As a matter of fact one of the least swanky fellows I’ve met was Fieldmorre—and he wasn’t bent on thrusting his title down your throat— at any rate until he’d got enough to buy the usual trimmings. But we’re all human, I guess, although an Englishman surely does hate admitting the fact. The muezzin was still wailing the call to 117 prayer, and in the east a faint flush was dawning while I was thinking these things about my white partner. And in a way I loathed myself that I did so, squatting there in the middle of this sacred python outfit, on the brink of being crucified alive. I had liked Fieldmorre heaps; and yet here I was, irritated over what I considered his darned stupidity. “T sav, Tromp,” his voice awoke me. “T think there’s a snake or something crawl- ing up vour robe.” Lord, I went about three feet up in the air; and I saw the glimmer of the darned brute, a small one, as it fell and glided into shadow. Then I laughed, thinking that after all I’d got my weaknesses all right! “By the way, Tromp,” said Fieldmorre when I got comforted again, “‘T rather think that you’re right. This fellow seems always to have got on the weak side of me. If William agrees with us both, vou'd better leave it to me to arrange matters with the man, don’t you think so?” “Sure,” said I, thinking with a mighty feeling of relief that I did love a man who knew when he was wrong. ‘You go right ahead and fix him. Listen—what’s that?” A prolonged windy whistle sounded— the wood-buck call. “‘That’s Billy,” said J, and returned it. Within a few minutes Langster showed up in the rose-pallid light, bearing what looked like a bag of loot. As it happened, he saw Sabah first, still praying his head off, dropped the bag and switched his rifle around. I called out to him that it was all right. He hesitated a moment, and at Fieldmorre’s assurance as well, picked up his load and came on. “What in is that doing alive?” he demanded as he approached the wall, and I couldn’t help feeling a glow of satisfaction. I left it to Fieldmorre to explain. didn’t seem pleased, and grumbled— “Anyway the swine made me upset half the water I had!” Billy related briefly that the row which I had caused had evidently drawn away the soldiers and that he had walked through into the town as easily, as he put it, as strolling down Fifth Avenue.. He had found himself in a quarter of the mdllah (“Salted Quarter” of the Jews). Nobody was about, for Jews were allowed neither to ride nor be out after sunset. Billy GOMIIGooOo S (©