Adventure Magazine Cover — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

744 to the door of the temple. The lad was gone and had taken his horse; not only that, but he had taken so much of the food that there was not enough left for more than two meals. It was plain that he had noted care- fully the path through the labyrinth of tree-trunks and, filled with fears of the forest, being a plantation-bred Indian pure and simple, he had deserted. If he had left early he might have reached the hacienda by midnight. If so, then Don Felipe and his men might be at the very door of their hiding-place this minute! Mounting the tree quickly, while Juan prepared breakfast, Haskell surveyed the country. Nowhere was there a sign of the pursuit, but as he studied the trail from the hacienda his heart gave a great leap. In an opening a big white horse showed for a moment; then came a mule bearing a mozo. But the rider of the white horse? At the next opening Haskell saw it was Emalia, riding toward the forest in desper- ate haste. CHAPTER VI NUNEZ PAOLA AKING a reflector, he tried to throw a ray of the rising sun in her direction as the signal-corps man heliographs. If the rays reached her she did not make them out, for she rode on without heeding. Some of Don Felipe’s men descried him, though. A half-spent bullet whined through the air below him and a report among the trees to the west located the marksman. There was another and closer shot from less than two hundred yards beyond the labyrinth and, taking the sheltered side of the tree, Haskell hurried down. Not only was their hiding-place discovered, but they were sur- rounded! Juan was painfully indifferent about the matter. “Every man must die some time,” said he with a toss of his head, but he agreed with Haskell that they could stand siege so long as the food held out, and that forty men could not take the mound even by assault, save in the hours between sunset and moonrise. The temple had but the one entrance and they need defend that and no more. As for evacuating and taking flight, there was no path except the one by which they had entered and this must be known to the enemy. Adventure With a heavy heart Haskell went about inspecting the outside of the temple from the top of the wall. That Emalia should imperil herself for his sake was the depress- ing, painful thought, though it brought him a great joy to know that her neart had prompted her to make what was plainly a useless attempt. Having made certain that the temple could be approached only by the front slope of the mound, he descend- ed and helped Juan make a barricade for the entrance. By great effort they got one of the horses half way up the slope, intend- ing to use them for food if need be, when a shot from the forest dropped the animal and a sharp fire that followed compelled them to retreat to the temple walls. The morning grew on slowly, and at last the sun was at the meridian. All was stiil and peaceful. A vagrant troop of monkeys passed in the tree-tops at some distance, and during the afternoon they heard now and then the deep, solemn note of a distant bell. ‘Fl Campanerol”’ whispered Juan, cross- ing himself. “And what is Hl Campanero?”’ “He is a bird of size and his voice is the voice of a bell. When the bell rings by day it is for souls that are to pass!” Haskell laughed, but a little shiver crept about the back of his neck. As the evening drew on, there fell a great stillness broken only by a little burst of outcries among some vagrant paroquets in the forest and the dismal sounds of the vultures, descended from their vigilant cir- cling aloft to their night’s perch in the vicinity of the bones of the horse and man killed the day before. The sun dropped slowly to the horizon and then, as is the way in those latitudes, seemed to shoot down in haste before the onrushing darkness. In fifteen minutes it was a transition from broad daylight to velvety black gloom intensified by a miasmatic mist wafted in- land from the seaboard. Haskell took a sheltered position behind the _ barricade. Juan crept down the gully worn by the water from the altar of the tiger, first fas- tening in his hair two of the big glow-beetles of the region so that Haskell should not mistake him for one of the enemy. The keen eyes of the old Indian were to be counted upon to detect the first signs of attack. Gradually his eyes. marred by the uses Cconnicloooks (©)