Adventure Magazine Cover — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

The Grudge crooned barbarously over the unconscious Muda, working his arms vigorously and keeping close to Mat Panku, murmuring incantations over the bowl. ‘To snatch that amiable pawang’s creese and defend himself against Ya Israng the moment the operation was over was his plan. Hopeless, but he could die fighting! Slowly the strychnin water in the bowl was sucked down. The young Raja Muda on the couch began to breathe more slowly and less hectically. Finally he moved, kicked out a leg impatiently, then turned. feebly over and opened his eyes to look at the crowd. Rajah Sharif Ahmad was bending forward tensely on his throne, all his soul concen- trated on his son. Their eyes met for an instant—and there was at last recognition in Muda’s! He opened his lips and sighed out the one word, “Allah,” then heaved a deep breath, rolled over on his side and slept, his breathing regular and enormously drawn-out and slow. eee LI WAS a miracle, a miracle of A @ Sq science, Yates knew, as an over- ~ Whelming flood of relief and thankful- ness rolled over his whole being. They had wrested a life from the grip of cholera! He found himself punching and slapping on the shoulder old Mat Panku as if it were the most natural thing in the world, grinning tremulously with delight and wringing the hand of Si-Pijak with professional enthu- siasm. Then he remembered where he was—in a hostile Malay balez, with his life hanging by a thread and his direst enemy somewhere near him with drawn creese. Still con- gratulating the pawangs, Yates glanced cannily around. Ya Israng was nowhere to be seen, but a tall adji was lifting up his voice in praise to Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate, while the raja was pouring out heartfelt and sincere phrases of thankful- ness, extravagant in their Oriental imagery. “It is indeed most passing great magic, O Rajah Sharif Ahmad!” he returned enthusiastically. ‘But—Ya Israng? To him I owe-a debt i. The raja held up a hand. “No,” he commanded. ‘‘Leave not the balet, ’ku. Hearest thou the voices of them that rejoice in the streets? A son is born to Ya Israng—who loves thee not. Therefore is he gone.” of Ya Israng 147 “But I must see to that. too, Ahmad,” insisted Yates. “Ya Israng was forced to break tabu by them that knew not what they did. Thou knowest, rajah.”’ “Go then, ‘unku, and my heart goes with thee,” said the rajah after a space of troubled reflection. ‘“Take this. The blue turquoise is a charm against the snake that craw]s on his belly.” He took a gold bracelet off his arm in which a single blue stone glowed. Yates knew that it was the Malay warning against treachery. “Even so, Illustrious; yet must I go. But thy charm is potent. I return soon, and we will drive the cholera from all this thy village. Come thou, Mat Panku!” With the native pawang he hurried down the street toward Ya Israng’s house. Yates was fumbling with his pocket kit as he stalked along. He took out a small hypo- dermic syringe and concealed it in his fist, with the point of the needle buried be- tween his fingers. There might be need of it; and if so his chance to cancel the grudge of Ya Israng had come! Natives were looking at him glumly down here as he neared the house. Up around the mosque they were still shouting the glad news; here they already knew that things were not going well and that the infant had come into the world only to die. Hisses and curses came to his ears as he and Mat Panku strode along. The crowd in Ya Israng’s garden parted as Yates and Mat Panku rushed in. A pawang, helped by the bidam, was busy at barbarous and inhuman rites over a small, naked, brown baby who remained limp and silent under treatment rough enough to kill him. Yates took in the trouble at a glance. The baby needed nothing more than that smart slap that is often necessary after birth to make him go and start his lungs working. The hot iron plate, the cannon crackers, the tossing cloth, were all for that purpose, but they were not succeeding. In'a few more minutes the poor little mite would be dead of self-suffocation. : “Do thou take charge, Mat Panku,” he told the native, who at once plunged into the fray. Yates looked about for Ya Israng. He discovered the old fellow under the house, tearing his hair distractedly and shrieking prayers to Allah to hear him in his great need MICLOOOK (© inn