Adventure Magazine Cover — page 164: what you’re looking at

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

154 appear in person, and, since no case devel- oped, Hickson’s identity remained safely obscured. As Cohusac came out of the choki and stood for a moment balancing his twisted body on a pair of heavy sticks, he looked down with alert, darting glances, into the colorful current of humanity that swirled by the steps, as a man looks with pleasure upon the water before plunging in. Stalls lined the hot, dusty thoroughfare, shimmering in the heat of noon. Camels loaded with mountains of fagots; donkeys tripping along sleepily with drums of water slopping over into the white dust; fawn- colored bullocks swaying from side to side drawing carts piled high with hides, fish and bales of cotton; kamali (coolie) carts, shoved and hauled by yelling, sweating, singing, half-naked Arab hkamals; dilapidated auto- mobiles shimmering with heat, with thump- ing engines and wheezy horns—they all zigzagged, crossed, intermingled, amid the shouts, curses, whistles, laughter of a weav- ing crowd drawn from all parts of the Afri- can coast and most parts of the Orient. From the steps of the choki, the visible seat of authority to this motley, ever chang- ing mob, the Frenchman looked down and marveled for the first time at the diversity of the British Empire and the appalling maze of problems in which its administra- tors were involved. He looked with new respect at the shambling black Somali as- karis, carrying their heads with haughty insolence; and he noticed with fresh inter- est the letter-writer, squatted on a worn and faded rug at one side of the bulletin board, writing out petty petitions for the miserable litigants who squatted on their haunches in front of his desk explaining in picturesque language the causes that brought them to appeal to the law. “After all,” thought Cohusac, “this de- jected letter-writer becomes a person of importance. He is hke a priest, sitting there, listening to confessions.” All at once Cohusac thought of the other services to which the letter-writer is often put—petitions of another sort that he is called upon to write—and he reflected— “But decidedly the resemblance ends there!” As he watched the letter-writer, with ¢ar- boosh pushed back on his narrow, withered head and his bulging eyes watering in the white-hot glare from which even the shadow Adventure of the choki did not protect him, sniffling as if with a cold, an idea flashed into Cohusac’s head—and a moment later it flamed into action. Catching the letter-writer’s watery eye, he beckoned to him. For a moment the letter-writer hesitated. He was sensitive of his scholarly dignity and did not like to admit that he was at the beck and call of any casual European who nodded insolently to him. But on second thought he considered that to serve a Euro- pean might mean a matter of rupees, while his clients of the bazaar begrudingly doled out to him thin annas and pice that were slimy with sweat. Flicking the ashes from his cigaret, he rose with composure, con- soling himself with a quotation: Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried, Asking, ‘“What Lamp had Destiny to guide Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?” And—“‘A blind Understanding!” Heav’n replied. Approaching the Frenchman, the letter- writer touched his forehead, lips and heart, murmuring: “Salaam! Your lordship wishes to speak to me, and, kudha! * I obey with a blind understanding!” | ‘With you be peace! Your blind under- standing is the essence of wisdom—and is precisely what I desire. I ask pardon of God! But this matter I have to communi- cate requires secrecy—secrecy, scholarship and the ability to use expressions of very fine feeling se The letter-writer suppressed a yawn. He was profoundly flattered; but at the same time he had no intention of being fooled into giving valuable service for any- thing less than its value. “Effendi, exactly what is the thing you wish?” ‘“‘A letter to a very beautiful woman!” The letter-writer showed his upper gum in a supercilious and mirthless smirk and flicked ashes from his cigaret. “The letter,’ said Cohusac, swaying on his sticks like a mischievous bird teetering on a twig, “will be short—a few fanciful strokes of the pen, embellished by an apt quotation perhaps from Saadi—and behold! A rupee!” “T am a letter-writer,” protested the scholar, his weak eyes watering as he attempted a look of reproach. ‘“Astagh- fary’llah! May Allah forgive me! This is not * Behold! NOOK 1 @)