Adventure Magazine Cover — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

156 shoulder beside the hump completed the costume. The effect was perfect. Cohusac risked it with assurance, feeling that if he was to be discovered he could turn the whole affair into a joke. With success, however, he gained assurance; and with as- surance he began to take on the characteris- tics of the réle. He ended in boldly enter- ing the offices of Abu Khalil, making him- self at home upon the darasa and singing a melancholy, homesick song of Chateaubri- and’s in a small, pleasant tenor that reached the ears of Sevier. Cohusac delivered his first letter to Mi- riam by taking a lucky chance when she ap- peared veiled at the doorway at the side of Abu Khalil’s house opening into the alley- way and handing it to her with a small bot- tle of attar of roses. As Cohusac passed the note to her, at first she recoiled with an ex- pression of disgust; but Cohusac’s earnest- ness and the intelligence that gleamed in his eyes changed her mind. “Mistress of hearts!’ breathed Cohusac. ‘He is one of the favored ones of Allah!” And the irrepressible Frenchman, bend- ing over his mandolin, continued slowly along the alleyway, strumming on his in- strument, and singing: ‘Till the shadows of the pyramids fade away!” At the end of the alley Cohusac turned around, hunching his head under his shoul- der, and he saw that the woman had neither thrown away the letter nor raised an alarm, but was staring after him fixedly. That un- swerving look from a woman of the harim brought a slight uneasiness to Cohusac, who was accustomed to considering Arab women as little more than sentient dolls de- signed to give pleasure; it made him sham- ble along with a little more care as to his disguise. “‘Nevertheless,” said he sardonically, “the ancients were right in ascribing the fall of man to the power of curiosity!” The next evening at the same time he surprized her at the grilled window staring toward Sevier’s quarters with drawn brows and glowing eyes. He tossed her a small packet, containing another letter and a box of chocolates procured from the steward of the P. & O. mail-boat returning from Bom- bay. She withdrew from the window hur- riedly; but there was no sign of repulsion, and there was no alarm. Adventure Cohusac returned to his own quarters after darkness had fallen and before the moon rose, in time to change into light white evening clothes and hobble around to visit Sevier. The American was in a mood of abstrac- tion, and obviously anxious to drive down to Steamer Point both for dinner and the op- portunity to see some friends there at the Union Club. “T can not understand,” said the French- man with an affected sigh, “how you can run away from your luck. Look! Every day at that window of Abu Khalil’s is that girl staring at you—and I assure you she is a beauty. What a fool to run away from that! For what? A game of bridge—gos- sip with a lot of stupid blockheads “Escape, my lad,” said the American bruskly. “I’m taking no chances of get- ting involved in any karim mixup. I don’t care how beautiful the girl may be!”’ “You are a very queer fellow,” said Cohusac, studying him with _ half-closed eyes. ‘To all appearances you are a man of great imagination with a fine sense of the romantic—passionate—and—eh, brave! Why the shouldn’t a man take a chance for such a prize as that? I tell you, if I had your strength and good looks I’d be up that wall like a squirrel!”’ _“T haven’t any doubt of it,” said Sevier dryly. He called sharply for the houseboy, a short, fat Hindu. “The sahib will remain for dinner; but I’m going down to the club. Talmadge Sahib will probably have dinner here too. Report to him before you leave tonight.” “Sahib!” “As for me,” said Cohusac, making a wry face, “‘I must decline the invitation. If you will give me a lift in your gharry I will go down to Steamer Point also. There are some things I can do there. And the com- pany of your excellent but unimaginative assistant does not interest me on such a night of moonlight.” Cohusac realized then that his task of involving Sevier in a scandal that would bring him prominently to attention and necessitate his leaving Aden was not so sim- ple as it had promised to be. It was obvious that Sevier was exercising extraordinary re- straint and caution. Since the American appeared to be doing an active business with Abu Khalil it was possible, of course, that DOOLK 1 O)