Adventure Magazine Cover — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

They Always Run True to Form The laugh, close inside the chamber, rang up to the roof and fairly split it. And, in the huge quiet after, the sound of rushing feet close to the farthest wall came pad- pad-padding over. ““Ha-ha-ha-ha!’’ The two white men went frozen numb. Then of a sudden came the noise of nervous scratching. Two faltering flames sprang weakly up. Quickly the white men lighted their wisps of tiny twigs and rose in readi- ness and nursed their fires. And as they rose a filthy figure rose and stood alongside them. ““Ha-ha-ha-ha!”’ The figure rose to its full height and from a pair of glaring eyes came the wild vacancy of utter madness. The eyes fixed on the blazing twigs and the great tousled head shook its long hair in insane fury. And with its tousled hair shook a long beard which straggled to a sunburned waist. “Ha-ha-ha-hal”’ With hands raised high above, and fingers clawing at the empty air, it yelled its cackling laugh. Yelled it and croaked it with face set hard and hideous. The hands came down and fiercely beat the breast as though to stir up smoldering courage. ‘“Ha-ha-ha-ha!”’ Again the hands went up, although the body crouched, and down beneath the hands the eyes blazed bloody murder. And then it came! With feet and hands in air and almost bunched together, the thing leaped up, and coming down it scored. The graybeard’s torch fell twenty feet away, and as it fell the graybeard’s back lay flat and sprawling. The thing jumped back. Just as a mon- key it bounded to one side, then made to charge the passage. And Bertie blocked it with threatening fist and spluttering torch. The thing leaped back, then charged with jabbering gasps. And Bertie’s fist, passing the hands that wildly clawed caught it upon the bearded chin. And still it clawed. The clawing hands like lightning gripped the outstretched arm. Two jaws of vigor- ous, healthy teeth almost met in it. And Bertie winced, then tried to draw the arm away. The clenched teeth held and the head shook as that of a dog. Quickly the clawing hands let go and reached for Bertie’s throat. Ripped and tore at it and wildly scratched and gashed. The flaming torch crashed cruelly in the 155 tousled beard. At once a smell of singeing hair went up. Loudly the thing howled, and jumped backward to run away. And as it howled the graybeard gripped it from behind. And both went down. Like eels they rolled and witihed: the graybeard’s hands failing to hold a single grip; the naked body, naked as Adam’s at the Day of Dawn, slipping away as easily as though well greased. - The graybeard’s head crashed down and for a tiny second—a fleeting atom of nothing —he didn’t struggle. The agile thing sprang up and to the passage. With Bertie right ahead. Fiercely the thing charged and backed, and charging howled and screamed. Back to his feet, a fresh torch in his hand, the graybeard held his end. Backing and charg- ing, with blood streaming from him, Bertie tried hard to stop the thing from getting by. With lashing, ripping, inch-long nails the thing gashed and tore, slashed round and cut. With yammering teeth it strove to bite and maul. The thing gripped Bertie and crashing he went aside. An arm came out and Bertie found a grasp. Side by side, each tightly gripping the other, the two struggled a full hundred yards. And Bertie’s torch was dying, but wasn’t yet quite dead. Savagely he raised it and banged it into the face once more. Squeal- ing, the thing relaxed its hold and turned. A yard away and facing it and ready the graybeard held his ground. Wildly the thing turned back and Bertie caught it as it passed. Madly again they rushed along together. The graybeard hesitated and fixed his last remaining torch, then ran into the distance and the dark, for Bertie’s hands had now become too busy for one of them to worry about light. The graybeard reached the ever-shifting strugele. Vainly the white man strove to keep his grip. The thing tore loose and rushed away—rushed into darkness with that same certainty as in the light of day. And close behind it, heeding no rock or hole, the white men chased along. The thing reached the last remaining corner and turned round it. Blindly it leaped away and on like a startled buck— a frightened hare. The yawning abyss loomed up black and dense ahead. The flames struck the sheer books comic (E(0)