Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

130 Ommony jumped in the nick of time to avoid the vicious teeth. Diana flew at the camel; the heavily loaded brute struggled to its feet, tried to kick four ways at once, and bolted. Ommony grabbed Diana. Nine or ten men chased the camel into a cor- ner, managed it amazingly with forked sticks and compelled it to kneel. It was plainly enough a desert outfit, used to meeting all emergencies without fuss. Then the shadowy elephants moved in single file across the yard and halted, sway- ing, at a door beside the one that Ommony had come through; he could see the top of a ladder laid against the first one from the far side but could not see who mounted it. A moment later, however, he caught sight of the lama and Samding, the lama walking like a warrior, skirted, pantalooned, seeming to have thrown off thirty years; they climbed on to the last of the elephants and moved off first, the others following. After that there was confusion for about a minute; several more elephants came through the gate, colliding with the loaded ones, and for reasons that were doubtless logical to them the camels all got up at once and stampeded into the jam. But a little, low-muttered swearing, some sharp cries and a lot of stick-work straightened that out. The camels were herded out into the open behind the elephants; the second lot of elephants came in, and a Tibetan seized Ommony’s arm. Not a word. No explanation. Two other men seized Dawa Tsering, taking no chances with him, pouncing on him from behind and shoving him along toward the same elephant to which the first man led Ommony. Maitraya’s voice was raised in protest somewhere in the dark, and a woman cried out hysterically; but none answered either of them. The whole party of actors was hauled into curtained howdahs like so much haggage. Diana jumped—Ommony caught her by the scruff of the neck, hauled her in after him, and found himself in a howdah with Dawa Tsering and one Tibetan, who leaned forward, touched Dawa Tsering on the shoulder and shook a finger at him meaningly. For answer the Hillman made a gesture toward his knife. But they were off, swaying like insects on an earthquake, before that argument could ripen into happenings, and in less than two Adventure minutes the Hillman was seasick, hanging on and moaning that he could smell death. “That camel kicked my belly into ruins! Peace! I willget down! I have had enough of this!” But the Tibetan leaned forward and lashed him very neatly to the howdah with a rope. “Cut me loose, Gupta Rao—or I call thee Ommonee/”’ “Nay,” lied Ommony, “it was my or- der.” “Thou? Oh, very well! Ommonee/”’ he yelled. Then again between spasms of vomiting: “Ommonee/ Ommonee!”’ It did not seem to matter. took no notice of it. Such a cry by night, smothered by howdah curtains, was not The Tibetan likely to mean much to chance passers-by. Perhaps Maitraya could hear it on the ele- phant ahead, but he would not know what it meant. Ommony let his name be yelled until the Hillman wore himself out, hoping that the Tibetan would be too much disturbed by it to notice anything else. He had his finger through a small hole in the curtain and was tearing it for a better view. He did contrive to snatch one hurried glimpse before the Tibetan saw what he was doing; but it was dark, there was no moon, and all he saw was a broken wall with trees beside it—nothing that would help identity the route. The Tibetan touched him on the arm and shook a warning finger, then climbed over to Ommony’s side of the howdah and ticd up the hole carefully with thread torn from a piece of sacking. He did not seem in the. least afraid of the dog, nor did she object to him. On the principle that good dogs know what their masters think subconsciously about a stranger, Ommony decided that the Tibetan was quite friendly. And the process of self-adjustment to mysterious conditions consists rather in keeping adventitious friends than in losing them. It seemed much more important to disarm suspicion and to create a friendly atmosphere than to find out which direction they were taking. He was likely to discover nothing if he should make himself objec- tionable; judging by the treatment Dawa Tsering had received, there was likely to be very little patience shown with disobedi- ence. The Tibetan looked big and strong enough to whip three men single-handed. micloool (© inn