Adventure Magazine Cover — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

124 Exactly thirty-eight men laid siege to the natives’ stronghold the next day. Leaving their horses down in the plain they advanced cautiously across the pitted ground, moving slowly, for the scoriated lava, beneath its mantle of coarse grass, tore heavy boots to ribbons and slashed at unwary hands. Pot- holes, gulleys, channels: and caves were everywhere. From every nook and cranny as the line went forward came an avalanche of missiles. Swaying awkwardly on narrow ledges, crawling along crevices, slowly, steadily the attackers routed the black- fellows from their hiding-places, and the crash of the guns boomed and rolled in the hidden caves. After their first stand the natives’ retreat grew faster and faster. They fled from the deadly guns for their hearts were no longer in the venture. Their short freedom had been acurse. Too many dead lay stretched down below on the plain, too many more were falling to hideous deaths on the jagged points of the lava rocks down in the hollows. Where they had anticipated an easy victory and an abundant food supply they found themselves crushed and _ harried and decimated. Those who were too old or too weak to run “came in” with upraised hands. Of these the greater number survived. They were herded into a deep gulley and left there under guard. After a time the battle degenerated into a climbing contest with little or nothing left to shoot at. But Rushton from the very be- ginning had found the pace too severe. He struggled as far as he could and then sat down on a fairly level spot the better to curse his infirmity. Cheers floated down to him from the summit and he turned his head to stare gloomily at the ant-like creatures gesticulating on the sky-line. Then before his startled eyes arose a native, sprung out of what seemed to be solid earth; a great, slavering brute of a man, who covered the space between them in one leap. Before Rushton could draw his gun he was half-lifted, half-dragged off his feet and toppled into a ravine with the shiny, black face pressed close to his own. They went rolling over and over, ripping themselves open on the knife-edged rocks. It was all over in a quarter of a minute. Rushton was ground down, shoulders pinned to the ground. Wrenching his right arm free he clutched at his revolver Adventure and fired even while the blackfellow knelt on his chest. Not one bullet missed its mark. The upraised club dropped harm- lessly to the ground. Rushton dragged himself clear of the dead body. “I may be extraordinarily lucky,’ he told himself as he rested his forehead against the side of the gulley, ‘‘but I think I shall need a most extraordinarily good sur- geon. Thank the Lord the climate is brac- ing—where did that originate anyhow?” An inarticulate cry, a gurgling, sobbing wail of agony had come from a passage that dipped steeply down into the earth. The cry was repeated. It made Rushton’s hair bristle on the back of his neck. “Some poor crawled in there to die, I suppose,” he muttered. “But I’m hanged if I care to go down there alone.” With the muffled cry still in his ears he tried to climb out of the gulley, but his aching body was not equal to the task. Lund and Wallen discovered him some minutes later and let themselves down be- side him. “Thought you were scuppered,” ex- plained Wallen. “I happened to glance back— To tell you the truth I didn’t expect to find you looking so well. By the way, the show’s almost over. The Mount- ed can take charge if they get here this side of Christmas.”’ “Somebody is down in that hole,” panted Rushton, ‘‘and I don’t like the sound of his voice. I want to put him out of his misery. Do you hear him?” “Let him die in peace,” urged Lund. “He don’t want to see us, that’s sure.”’ “T’m going down there,” doggedly as- serted Rushton, “‘to help that fellow out of his misery. Will you go with me, Wallen— as a favor?” “Certainly—as a favor. boys are best left——” “‘The sooner he’s at rest the better. I’m just about played out myself, if I have to stand here and argue——”’ They went groping their way down into the utter darkness of the passage. On hands and knees, sometimes flat to the ground, they worked their way along and as they went the voice grew louder until around a sharp elbow they entered a low- vaulted chamber lighted by the smoking butts of a ring of torches. And in the center, sagging and collapsed in the bonds that held him to a stake, But these black- DOOLK 1@)