Adventure Magazine Cover — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

The Grudge of Ya Israng funking now, or you’ll never see Calicut again!’ he warned them grimly. He led them down to the riverbank, where he called over the Navy and then headed for the stockade. At its gate the idjle and dissolute guard of the raja, fully armed with musket and creese, stopped him insolently, and then all grinned derisively when Yates told them he was on his way alone and unarmed to Sharif Ahmad’s baler. But Yates did not go there first off. Of an urchin he inquired the way to Ya Israng’s house and turned down a dusty and filthy alley, clamoring with the voices of mourners, to seek it. The hut stood in a tiny garden backed up against the stockade. An old hag whom Yates recognized as the bidan or midwife sat cursing him on the ladder to the veranda. He greeted her with a Mohammedan blessing and looked about the garden under the papaya trees. There was the usual auspicious place for the birth selected by the pawang, sur- rounded with thorns, nets, ray’s tails, bees’ nests and bitter herbs to drive away evil spirits. There was the iron plate with a fire under it for the new-born babe to lie upon, the cannon crackers, the black tossing cloth, the platter of rice to bury him in. Robust would the infant have to be to survive those ordeals. Yates gathered that the birth was to take place very soon and that Ya Israng was purifying himself at the mosque. He called his coolies and headed for the balez. There was no difficulty about entering it; the problem would be to get out again alive. Raja Sharif Ahmad sat in his chair of state, a gross, fat Malay with big and pouting lips and with shifty brown eyes, whose whites were tinged with yellow, rolling in his brown face. His sword- bearer stood at one hand with the gold and jewel ornamented sword of state held cere- moniously with its point resting on a small square of red plush. At the other side stood the mzntri or vizier, and around the raja were native pawangs and black-and- white-garbed priests of Islam in dome- shaped turbans bound about with brown cords of camel’s hair from Arabia. All were consulting anxiously about the plague. Ahmad, perceiving Yates in the doorway of the audience hall with his two coolies pause him, scowled sullenly. 145 “Now, ‘by Allah, the Scourge of Un- believers—darest thou come here, Yates Tuan!’ he burst out angrily. ‘Know then that by Choree, my sword of state, have I already sent messengers to the dogs of English on the hill commanding them to take their boat and go back to the sea whence they came! ‘Behold the black plague which they have brought upon my people!” he went on, voicing his woes to Yates, whom he had once much admired as a white scientist among his people. “Is it not enough that they die like flies? When did the benign old king in Siam ever bring us such mis- fortune? “Once thou wert in great favor here, *"Ku Yates,” the raja said almost kindly, using the affectionate diminutive of tunku, ruler, as an echo of old times. “Go back and tell them to go away, or my fighting men will blight them utterly before this day’s sun goes down.” Yates temporized. He had come with great magic against the plague, he told them, pointing to the gleaming brass pump. It belonged to the English on the hill; therefore would it not be well to try this magic first and then send them away? The raja’s face took on an expression of interest as he and all the pawangs looked at the pump. The latter, Yates could see, were dying to get their hands on it. He had always worked through them before, as it was very bad medicine to oppose the native sorcerers or to laugh at their meth- ods. It was far better policy to slip a powder or a pill into the vile decoctions they gave their patients and let them take all the credit for the cure. The raja’s next words gave him a gorgeous, a superb, opportunity. “Ku,” he said gloomily, “my heart is heavy within me; for I know that my son, the Raja Muda himself, lies at death’s door of the évil spirits. If thy magic——” “Let him be brought, O Raja Sharif Ahmad, whom may Allah cherish!” said Yates in a loud and confident voice. “Thou, Mat Panku, and thou also, Si-Pijak, shall make this magic,’ he called out, pointing to the two principal pawangs around the raja and enlisting them with him before any objections due to jealousy could be made. “I too will do a poor part; but it is not seemly for an unbelieving Nazarene such as I to presume to have NOOK © inn