Adventure Magazine Cover — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

142 his temper utterly and smack! went the palm of his hand, rocking Ya Israng’s cheek, while the yoke slipped off and both cans fell to the ground and upset. Ya Israng glared ferociously for an in- stant while his hand leaped to where a creese should have been in his girdle. Then he eyed this tuwan who had befriended him the night before, reproachfully and puzzled. “Nay, if it pleases the Presence to smite his faithful servant,” he mumbled. “But wherefore? It is good water and clear. There is no wrong 2 “Peace—offspring of a frog!” barked the exasperated Yates, all his tact and knowl- edge of what is insulting in word and deed to a Malay thrown to the winds in his in- dignation. ‘Know you what you have done? Because there was no going to the spring as was the order, behold! The Raja Besar, the resident, lies dead of drink- ing this filth; a gentle and harmless boy of thine own race was borne out dead last night; and the rest of us— Nay, heavy will be the hand of Tuan Browne upon thee for this, O Ya Israng!”’ Ya Israng stared at the gasping Yates as if he thought that the heaven-born was without doubt mad. Why all this pother about mere water? What difference whether it came from spring or brook? It was all lost on him; but the last part of Tuan Yates’ outburst was intelligible. He was to be punished by Tuan Browne for this water- carrying; with what atrocious tortures no man could imagine! Also this false friend had not only spied upon him, but—unfor- givable in Malay eyes—had caught him in the very act. Fear-lines wrinkled his brown face; then rage and open rebellion. A monkey-like ferocity narrowed his brown eyes, and his mouth framed its lips into an open diamond of malevolence. “Bah!” he shot out. ‘“‘What is it all to me! I that have a son coming in mine old age yet was forced to labor like a buffalo, to the end that he might be delivered dead —still-born! Ya, Allah! Unjust and ac- cursed is the white man! And now to be beaten!”’ That cry of the tabu-ridden native, most unjustly used according to his beliefs, pierced Yate’s heart. It was all so real to Ya Israng, however absurd in the light of common sense! The innocent Crabbe had Adventure been hideously unjust in allowing the old fellow no coolie. Yates could appreciate Ya Israng’s side of it, in spite of the enor- mity of the consequences of this water fiasco. He was about to ignore the disrespect and attempt a conciliatory explanation, but Ya Israng gave him no time. With a whirl of bitter oaths and a sudden flinging off of his scarlet jacket of livery, the old fellow had turned and fled down the trail, leaving Yates fighting the coat off his own head. He tried to follow for a moment, but a splash in the brook and the rustle of bushes on the other side told him it was useless. Ya Israng was gone; gone to Raja Ahmad’s stockade—with the news that the resident was dead and the rest all down with cholera! ] YATES picked up his toupee and i hurried back to the road. He re- proached himself unsparingly for that outburst. Never, on no matter what provocation, was it safe to give way to temper before the calm and courteous Malay. And God help the white man who has incurred the Brown Man’s enmity! A Malay can hold a grudge for fifty years. Sooner or later it will be appeased, usually long after reconciliation has been sworn and the white man forgotten all about it. The thing would just happen; an appalling and unspeakable treachery apparently without rime or reason. The vision of the dead resident lying in state in his room and the certainty that the rest of the staff was already infected had given Yates excuse enough, he felt. But the fact was there; an undying hate forever to be on watch against. He had caught Ya Israng in a misdemeanor, an unforgivable insult in Malay eyes. Nothing less than his own death could satisfy that grudge. Yates reached the residency at last, hot and tired and blown, and his head swim- ming from the effects of the sun. Ranleigh met him with a very grave face in the quiet and darkened living room of the residency. “Browne and Crabbe both down, Mr. Yates,” he announced gloomily. “They are in the doctor’s room. Sick as he is, Crabbe is fighting to the last for both their lives.” “T should think they would be down!’ snorted Yates warmly, and he told the administrative of Ya Israng’s precious water-carrying. MICLOOOK C@