Adventure Magazine Cover — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

The Edge of the Simitar imposed upon him were worth hardly a thought. “How did it happen?” ““Whiche” “Good ——, did they get you more than once?” ‘Well, yes. Once under the ground; and once up in the air.” The Englishman made an inarticulate cluck of sympathy; and Cohusac explained. “The first time, I walked into a barrage. It was muddy. A shell explodec_ beside me; but all I realized was—there I was all at once in my grave! “Tust about as I was getting ready to look for the pearly gates—pam!—another one!— and there I was sitting on the edge of a crater without a stitch of clothes on, face to face with my officer. His eyes were bulg- ing out. What do you suppose he said? He said: “‘“Vou, Cohusac! Where the —— have you been?’ ‘“‘What could I say to that?” “T can imagine it,” said Hickson with fascination. ‘Were you hurt?” “Well, I don’t know; but my skin was blue color for a month. When I came out (of the hospital the doctors shrugged. But when they examined me for the air service ‘there was nothing wrong.” “Oh, that’s where you got the other. I remember now. A bullet in the stomach or something like that, wasn’t it?”’ “A tracer bullet, Hicky.” “Oh, good God!” said Hickson with horror. “Right up here, tucked under the muscles like a cigar. Have you ever had the head of a match fly off and—eh—-sizzle on the end of your finger? Well, they said the phosphorus was sizzling for sixteen hours ‘a “Oh, good God!” repeated Hickson, shuddering and gripping his friend’s arm with desperate sympathy. ‘And you lived!” “Partially,” said Cohusac with a sardonic smile; ‘but it doesn’t do me very much good. -Frankly, I find it meaningless. I lie here in the hot sunlight and read, and after a while it bores me. At night I lie here and look at the stars, and after a while they rather frighten me. It makes a man lonely. Every one is busy, you know; I have little company. When I go out, Hamid carries me into a gharry, and up and down stairs. I disgust myself.” 143 “What do the medicos say?” “Oh, I am very interesting—psycholog- ically! My wounds are healed; but my nerves do not heal. They say I will be dead in six months. Pah! What do I care?” he cried with sudden passion. “TI tell you, this sort of existence is hell! It is hell!’ For a moment the two friends were silent, Hickson still holding on to Cohusac’s arm, feeling instinctively that that sympathetic contact might communicate some subtle reassurance. _ “You see,” said Cohusac in a quieter tone, as if trying to justify himself, “I think when I was buried my surface nerves must have been bruised or something of the sort that made them particularly sensitive; and then the other thing—in my vitals, you see—inflamed everything. That’s about it. I feel flames inside me—and sometimes running over me.” “Ugh!” said Hickson. me go about grousing because we have a little extra work chucked at us!”’ “No, no, no, Hickson! That is the wrong idea. We all take chances. Who knows what our fate is going to be? No! It is this cursed war! If we could only say this is the man who instigated it, or that is the clique that is responsible, and single them out for appropriate punishment, there might be some gain to humanity. We would not mind so much this suffering. But it is the futility of the pain that is killing. It kills the body first perhaps; but it also consumes the mind.” 3 “To you mean,” said Hickson, picking his words, “that you might find some relief —in distraction, say—if it were possible for you to locate a man who is deliberately insti- gating war, and help in his punishment?”’ “What pleasure!” “That,” said Hickson grimly,“ is just what I am trying to do at the present moment!” After a pause, during which the two looked at each other steadily—Hickson with pale-blue eyes inflamed from sun and sea and Cohusac with eyes of velvet that could be as expressive as a storm or as un- fathomable as a dark, cloudless sky—the Frenchman said: “That is what ten million armed men in Europe are attempting at the present mo- ment. I know you are a person of great daring, originality and initiative; but I can not quite believe you are stalking the Kaiser. Still, you are capable of the effort.” DOOK “And fools like. 1 @)