Adventure Magazine Cover — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

40 “Plucky little kid!’ muttered Senhor Tom. “Starved and plumb worn out, but never a whine. Dog-gone it, ’m a bum and a brute to get snappish the way I did.”’ Then, as the long lashes fluttered a little against her pale face, he turned to the chief. “Andirah, my woman has had no food since the sun twice has stood in the middle of the sky,” he said. ‘She dies from hunger and lack of sleep.” The girl was not dying, but the response of the Bat could not have been quicker if she had been. He snapped at women who seemed to be his wives and daughters. They hastened away. “Food shall be brought to the woman of Tupahn, and to the men of Tupahn, and to Tupahn himself,” the old man promised. “And much rum shall be brought also. Once today Andirah has offered a feast to his friends, but they would not stay while. the woman was unfound. Now she is here, and my brother sees again, and the serpent who would have worked evil has been cast out. So let the friends of the Bat and the people of the Bat rejoice together.” A hum of approval went among the Tucunas, and their eyes glowed at the pros- pect of an all-night revel. But Senhor Tom shook his head. “Tomorrow let it be, my brother, but not tonight,”’ he said. ‘We are worn from toil and travel, and we would sleep.”’ With that he turned back to the girl, who now was looking up at us but lying quiet. The hum among the Indians.ended, and all looked sour. But Andirah, after - a minute’s thought, nodded. “It is well,” he agreed. have more meat. At dawn the hunters shall go out and kill many birds and beasts, and the feast shall be the greater. Until then all shall rest in the maloca, safe from the things that prowl in darkness.” See AND so it was. Among the In- wear) dians who had met us men with spears and had handed the senhor- ita over to their priest without a word to save her, we ate at the chief’s fire and slept in the hammocks nearest the ruler of the tribe. There was little talk. Our Lady Marion ate heartily, yet daintily, of the food brought by the chief’s women, and then fell asleep without a “good night”’ to any of us. ~” |) 6 oer ae, ee Pe Oe fo Se” ee ae a" Re et Lay a, — se a CaS ~ Mie ae PE ete 6 Sa ee . at a See Res, F. = =e eS “So shall we: Adventure -Senhor Tom lay down next and relaxed with a long sigh. Pedro and I, after a look into the rum-jar, took a stiff drink apiece, coughed, grinned at the men of the Bat, and soon were sleeping like dead men. Yet, in the little time between lying down and falling asleep, I looked at the dark-haired girl and the blond-bearded man and wondered. I marveled over the queer course of things since they had met, and wondered what might be the end of it all. The two beast-men who had carried the lovely little lady as a victim to Black Hawk had never lived to return to Viciado. One, murdered by his partner in fear or fury, had gone out in his sleep. The other—how had he come to be caught in the bush with no canoe? His boat might have floated away during a sudden night rain, or he might have been discovered while ashore and chased through the bush by vengeful Indians until he.succeeded in dodging them. But he had lived only to commit two more crimes and then to be killed by the enemies he had made through earlier evil. The vile priest, who would have held the girl captive until he tired of her and would have driven us three out or killed us, had only wrecked his own power, restored the sight of his bitterest foe in a final grapple, and found death for himself. It was a good joke on that medicine-man, and one that made me chuckle. And we three, seeking the girl—how we had blundered about! Four times we had been almost within reach of her, yet never seen her: once in this maloca, again at the edge of the clearing, a third time when we stood above her head in the priest-house, and last when we came again to that house by darkness. If that jaguar had not turned her back tonight she might have met us. Yet, if she had, we should have turned back at once; and so Senhor Tom still would be blind and the pajé would be alive to lead killers against us at dawn. An odd set of twists and turns, indeed. And now what lay ahead? We had not yet reached Viciado. Before we arrived there, what more might happen to our senhor and senhorita? If I had stayed awake long enough I could have thought of many possibilities. But even if I had thought all night I should never have imagined the thing that really did come about. ecommiclaoolks (E@)