Adventure Magazine Cover — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

The Land of Ophir that he was making a mess of things; but I couldn’t discover anything noticeably wrong except that his rifle was sticking out beneath his robes, as I suppose mine was, about half a foot. But that wasn’t any- thing abnormal. Then I noticed that the fellow was staring at me, and particularly at my hands. Then I understood. I had forgotten to slip off a ring. Now to orthodox Mohammedans gold ornaments are forbidden, though that didn’t worry these people any; but my ring was obviously of European make. I whispered to Billy to quit right then. We slowly slipped on our shoes and began to walk off. I saw the fellow out of my eye mumbling away to himself. Then he started to follow. Evidently the fact that we hadn’t entered the mosque to pray after ablutions was another suspicious point. I took a hurried glance around and spotted another gate leading out into what looked like a quiet lane. As we made for it I whispered to Billy to get his rifle loose. At that moment another man came walk- ing across the courtyard, making for the fountain. Swiftly calculating that he wouldn’t be in the line of vision by the time our man reached the arch, I whispered again to Billy. “Pretend to part under the arch. Wait round the corner and [’ll slug him as he comes through. If 1 miss, you must get him. If he starts something, we’re lost.” According, in the arch we faced about and made a pretense of saying good-by, Arab fashion, and then stopped dead on either side of the wall. Fortunately the lane was empty. A minute later came the shuffling of our inquisitive friend. Then I got him. He went down without any fuss; and after pulling his unconscious body out of sight in order not to disturb the faithful on their way to prayer, we turned to beat it up the lane as fast as we could. But bearing down upon us was a man who must have seen the whole thing. We both pulled up and began to walk sedately but with our rifles out. As the fellow came on I saw that he had a red beard, and something about him seemed familiar. When he came abreast, but on the other side of the lane, and the sun was 123 straight in our eyes, I nearly let out a yell. However, although he looked us straight in the eyes he didn’t seem to know us or to have witnessed what he must have seen. I hesitated. Yet I was dead sure of that puggy nose. Said Billy— “Wasn’t that Veron?” We both turned and stared after him. I daren’t call out in case it might not be. The fellow kept steadily on. “Mighty queer,’ commented Billy. “I could have sworn it was Veron, and yet— And anyway he must have seen——” “Me too,” said I. “Let’s go after and see. Here, I’ll tackle him.” But as I started after him three men came in sight. We slowed up and walked sedately along until they were past, but by that time the man whom we suspected had passed into a main street. We followed on doggedly, not daring to hurry after him; and he, we noticed, seemed to have put on the pace a bit. The street got more and more crowded as we came into a market square beginning to fill with country people and camels, mules and donkeys, and we had some dif- ficulty in keeping the tag on our man. Several times we lost him, only to find him by the glint of that red beard. Once we nearly got into trouble with a beggar who was holding up people for alms; under the guise of being crazy, and there- fore holy; and we unfortunately hadn’t any fluss—the base Moroccan copper or the cowrie shells, the local change—upon us. However, Billy, with presence of mind, misquoted a sura of the Koran, which im- pressed him enough to give us a chance to slip by and let him focus his attention on the next victim. After that we had to take a chance and hurry to overtake our man, who had again disappeared. ‘This time we couldn’t locate him for some time until we made a sudden turn, when we found ourselves in a large square before what was evidently the palace of the Gandhi, beneath the great arch of which I caught the gleam of his red beard as he stood talking to one of the guards. This time the sun was not in my eyes, but directly upon him, and as he spoke a gesture he made with one hand convinced me. By , it zs Veron!” I exclaimed to Billy, recklessly in English. But at that moment Red-Beard turned and walked into the palace. C@ DOOK S C@