Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

118 somewhere, humming to himself. a song about the feuds of Spiti, where— “A white mist rolls into a valley and sleeps, } O-ayee-O-ayee-O-ah! There’s a knife in the mist, and a young widow weeps, O-ayee-O-ayee-O-ah!”’ - Ommony lay on the bed in the tent and forced himself to accept the situation calmly. There was no use in racking his brains; the mystery now had become still more involved by the fact that Sirdar Sirohe Singh was a member of the Secret Service, who considered himself obligated to report unusual incidents to McGregor and yet did not hesitate to lend a hand in obscuring the very trail he had been re- quested by McGregor to investigate; who instantly returned the secret identification signal, and yet refused to give information; who had been ordered by McGregor to remain in Tilgaun and observe events, and yet did not mind showing himself within two days’ march of Delhi—(nearly a thou- sand miles from Tilgaun)—to a fellow mem- ber of the Secret Service, who he had no reason to suppose would not report him! The best thing to do was to sleep, and Ommony tried to do so, waking by fits and starts to worry and wonder to what extent Hannah Sanburn had let herself be mixed up in the business. Above all, what could the business be? He was sure now that Benjamin’s story about the smuggling of white children northward was true, because the girls who were with the lama were certainly not natives of India, and could not possibly have learned all they knew in the way of language alone in less than a dozen years. They must have been brought from abroad. But why? For what purpose? The mystery increased again when night fell. The same dumb, nondescript servant who had brought breakfast came with sup- per and hovered twenty yards away, sig- naling with a white cloth when Ommony had finished eating. Promptly in answer to the signal the Sirdar stepped out from the trees with a lantern and called for Gupta Rao in a loud voice, retreating as Ommony advanced toward him until, on the far side of the belt of trees Ommony was aware of shadowy forms of men—horses, at least a dozen of them in a long line, with gaps be- tween—great shadowy carriages that filled the gaps as he drew nearer—and at last, Adventure smiling as placidly.as if the new moon that shone like a sliver of pure gold over his shoulder were a halo he had just discarded, the lama himself. @ A ing about among the horses, patting them; Ommony noticed him ease a bearing rein. The lama nodded to Om- mony, stepped into the foremost carriage followed by Samding, and drove away at a gallop, the carriage swaying like a big gun SAMDING was in attendance, mov- going into action. Sirdar Sirohe Singh. pushed Ommony into the next carriage— which had only four horses, whereas the lama’s had six—allowed Diana just suff- cient time to jump in behind him, and slammed the door, almost shutting it on the dog’s tail. A whip cracked instantly and the carriage started rocking and bumping in the lama’s wake. A moment later a third and a fourth carriage followed. Within was almost total darkness. There were two windows made of slats, forming part of the doors; Ommony tried them both, but the slides were nailed in position. He opened a door and swung himself out on to the footboard to get a view of the following carriages, which he could just discern through the gloom and the cloud of dust, their drivers swaying on the high box-seats and shouting as they plied the whip. There was no way of guessing whether Dawa Tsering had been left behind or not. He climbed back into the carriage, holding the door open, but could not see much except dust, darkness and occasional shad- owy tree trunks. | The pace was furious. The flight was evidently prearranged, and managed per- fectly. Horses were changed every ten miles or so, but whenever that happened men came to either side of Ommony’s carriage and held the doors shut, riding on the footboards afterward until the place where the change was made was out of sight. The route, except at intervals, did not lie along macadamized roads; once they lurched into a dry stream-bed and followed that for a mile or two, the wheels sinking in sand. But that, too, had been foreseen; men were waiting there, who ran alongside and seized the wheels whenever they sunk too deep, toiling as silently and smartly as a gun crew. It was almost dawn when they rumbled Comicbook Wh) © 5}