Adventure Magazine Cover — page 169: 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 / have gone to all that trouble to make that. crowd there believe he was mad.” The madman seemed to hear and looked up with a vacant smile. Both white men’s eyes were on him, and the smile broke to a silly cackle. “What are you trying to do?” the gray- beard asked as pleasantly as he could force himself to speak. “What was your bright scheme in frightening us almost to death, and then at the last minute snatching us away? And what comes next?” Again for a moment the silly cackle sounded; then of a sudden the mad eyes seemed to clear, the lips to strive to speak. ~ “T want—I want—” the mad mouth started saying. “I want—’’ Then the great effort failed; the mind refused to act; the stupid cackle came again. The graybeard’s eyes came round to Ber- tie. “He knows what he wants, Bertie, but now the big excitement’s over his wander- ing brain’s gone back. And he wants us. We’d better see it through, eh?” “Of course, Frank. If I should guess, I’d say his wants are pretty closely bound up with what we’re wanting, too.” “T think you’re right, Bertie,”’ and the old man’s eyes looked hopefully far away into the distance in the direction they were going. ‘“‘What’s more,’ he added. “I have a very strong idea that our madman has been through all that scene before—and that he’s been the intended victim. And I think that, although his madness saved him then, it made him still more mad, if such could be. . That’s why his streaks of almost-sanity, then breaks into howling craziness, are so terribly inconsistent,” ‘““Mad in two ways at once, eh, Frank?” “Yes, Bertie; or else the worst half of his madness has been staged for reasons of his own.” A short half-hour they lolled in the long grass and fitfully rested—rested a tremb- ling, quivering, sick, uneasy rest. Again the small crowd mounted and headed to the horizon. The grass turned to dense scrub, the scrub to bush. The bush skirted a maze of kopjes—hills‘ muddled and mixed as though thrown wildly together by some giant hand. The horses entered the hills and twisted in and out around them, the madman leading with an assurance which clearly \ showed he had some definite aim. The hills were closer, more difficult and more confusing. The way wriggled along as the trail of a crazy snake. Swiftly the glowing sun slid down and out of sight. The short, clear African twilight glowed and faded; the African night commenced to fall. The bush broke to an open twisting crack and in the crack they found the spoor of pass- ing wagons—spoor in which the crushed grass lay flat. Eagerly the naked man slipped down and closely scanned the tracks. Eagerly, but at a quite safe distance, M’Poine on hands and knees looked at the spoor. Kaffir and brain-dead white man squatted together and inquiringly peered into each others’ eyes. Kaffir and white man drew their horses into the shade of a clump of trees. Silently they lay and looked up at the stars. Round a bright fire Kaffirs and white men squatted in silence. Gradually, one by one, they crept aside and slept—slept the dead sleep of men whose very souls are racked till the quivering shock of speech is far too great to stand. The sun had barely risen before M’Poine came in with a young duyker. Under the trees he dropped the buck and instantly knelt to dress it. The white men, pulling the smoldering ashes of fire together, looked wonderingly at him. “All right, Izim’ Lungu,” the Kaffir as- sured with confidence. two days ago. shoot.” The graybeard shook his head. ‘“‘We’ve got to eat, M’Poine, that’s sure enough. But after all this I’d rather starve for two more days than lose the game at last.” “We shall catch them, M’Lungu, because they think they are safe.”’ The quiet, demented man listened in- tently. The eyes, still bloodshot, gave no sign of reason, yet the lips yammered, the head gave vigorous nods. Eagerly the starved men fed, the hungry Cora gorging her empty maw just beyond sight within the grass. Then they rode off and all that day rode— No man has heard me rode for two tireless days along the zigzag-~ ging trail. The spoor became fresher; the ashes of the fires were newer. The wagons were going slower, and the distance from EOmIcboo “S 163, “‘The wagon passed — (E(0)