Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

The Blond Spiders “Well, you see that renegade boche back there at Chinde had never put us wise to the fact that there was a whole column pretty nearly of his brothers here. Anyway they’d got us good, and squarehead fashion, weren’t any too polite about it. Dumped us over there where we found Boulters. He’d only been here about a month then. You’d never guess what their game is—or was, I’m mighty glad to say, thanks to you fellows. A regular Tirpitz-cum-blood-and- iron-cum-Lenine stunt—and then some, be- lieve me! “WELL,” resumed Vansittart, ‘it’s the everlasting superman-blond- beast-Deutschland-iiber-alles stuff. They’ll never get that out of their nuts. They have that antlike efficiency and per- sistence—just like these darned spiders. As soon as you smash their web they start right in spinning another; and their souls are like the spiders’—no call of humanity, no pity for others or themselves will move ’em.”’ “Yes, I guess that’s right,’ assented Tony, thinking of the von Muhlhauser’s cold indifference to his own fate or his men’s. “Sure I’m right,” said Vansittart with a touch of heat in his voice. ‘Well, let me get back to the beginning as far as we've been able to dope it out from the Herr Doktor. He’s a vain, talkative swine, and he’ll yap for hours boasting of his accursed system; and he’s the king pin of the works here. “Tt seems he was caught out here when the war started, hunting specimens for his experiments, and joined up with their forces as ordinary surgeon. At the end they got chased out of Uganda and stumbled on this valley by accident. They had the luck of the , or Odin maybe; he is said to provide specially for his chosen; for at the time locusts hit the valley, and apparently the spiders were so gorged that they were sluggish. Anyway they marched down in a formation expressly designed by the Herr Professor—mark this!—himself—you bet! --=with the Kommandant and officers in the center, about them the white soldiers, pro- tected again by a double rank of blacks; for Herr Professor had a hunch that maybe the spiders were poisonous. Well, they got through with a few dozen blacks bitten up and a few whites; and by way of compen- sation—just to show the Lord was leading 35 ‘em all right!—they found the diamonds. ‘“‘They were tickled to death. From the military point of view the valley was a splendid hide-out and depét for arms; the stones would provide a Kolossal—yep, Herr Doktor’s own word!—fortune for the bene- fit of the monarchist cause; supply the sin- ews they couldn’t pry loose anywhere else, I guess. And from a scientific point of view the place was ideal to carry out the professor’s experiments, which, I gather, had been denied full expansion in the Fatherland by the sentimentalists—if there be any sich animile there! ‘“They’re efficient all right. First thing Herr Doktor starts after an anti-toxin to counteract the spiders’ poison and gets it. That by the way is how that Flaxman fel- low got away. He was a medical orderly, stole a phial of the anti-toxin and hopped with a parcel of stones. They sent after him, for they have agents in Chinde from whom they get supplies; but they daren’t make a big fuss, so they quietly bumped him off. “The Kommandant digs in and wants labor. Sends off a couple of officers and men and steals some diving suits from that wreck on the Tana—although we’ve never seen ’em and they keep ’em hidden, I under- stand. Suits were more practical for raids and reconnoitering than anti-toxin, which is apt to incapacitate the patient for weeks. Then they sent out parties to round up bunches of natives for mine labor, drove ’em through, shot anti-toxin into ’em to pull ’em round and slit their tongues and pierced their ear drums so that in case of escape—! Very efficient, huh? “We tried to get after that anti-toxin; but since Flaxman bolted brother dee keeps it hidden somewhere. Then we drew lots to make a break and get a letter out for help before going under. Poor old Plexy! Well, you know. “We were going to give him a month— unless Herr Professor started something before—and then break or bust. We planned to either buy—the askaris didn’t love their bosses, believe me!—or fix the sentry; then fire the camp and while they were busy, try to burn a path through the spiders. ‘‘We had decided on tomorrow night, and you can imagine we felt good when you fel- lows started. The sentry simplified matters by bolting off to see what was on; and we, CoMmicbook ) © 5}