Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

Pie» Ol LAND OF THE SHADOW PEOPLE. sun sink behind the tree-tops through a sea ‘of amethyst. Presently a dingy old crone with with- ered breasts crept across the cémpound from one of the fires, and the sentinel al- lowed her to pass. She brought Kate’s supper, a bowl of steaming and not un- pleasant stew, a handful of bananas, and a gourd of water. The old woman grinned and squatted amicably on her hams to watch the prisoner eat. - Not long after she had gone a warrior approached the tunduy, which swung from a@ small tree near the center of the com- pound, and struck it a single light blow. That, was the Huachipairi sunset gun, and “curfew as well. The noise of playing children was hushed at once, and the youngsters headed each for the parental malocca. Even the dogs ceased their wrangling and slunk to their lairs. Another sentry relieved Kate’s guard ~ for the. night, and with him came the curaca—a tall, angular Indian of middle age. As he came near her, Kate nodded to him, which tickled him vastly. Taking up a position in front of her, he struck himself upon the breast, pointed skyward, and delivered a number of sonorous periods with all the unction of a Chautauqua speak- er. At the conclusion of his » Kath- ‘erine bowed again, and he went away well pleased with himself. ' Jt is doubtful if Kate would have been so courteous had she known that the curaca had come a-courting, and that his speech was the announcement that the . next night would be that of the full moon, when he would take her to his malocca as his chief wife among a dozen. Gradually the noises of the village died into silence. Flooded with moonlight, the compound lay like a pictute done in silver and black by a master artist. In one spot only was there a motion to: destroy the illusion: in front of the malocca where Kate slept on her bed of cane, the sentinel paced ceaselessly. When he marched toward the river wall his shadow sprawled diagonally ahead of him athwart the short grass until it passed into the deeper shadow which lay like a velvet.band at the foot of the wall. Each «vy Google ne ne. ae 467 time that happened he turned back toward pe forest, and then the shadow followed im. Many times, perhaps three hundred, the man had made his patrol, when a curious thing happened. Had one with keen eyes been watching, he would have seen the sentry’s shadow become suddenly darker as he turned from the wall. Moreover, it was not the precise shape it had been. It was as though;the man who cast it had become wider ‘and had developed a knoblike excrescence be- tween his shoulders. Yet the observer would have seen no change in the man himself that would account for the shad- ow’s strange actions. At the end of his post the sentry paused, gazed toward the forest, and swung his shoulders to turn. But he had made his last earthly patrol. | Behind him the shadow writhed and grew taller. The warrior let fall his lance, sawed the air with clawing fingers, and crumpled soundlessly upon his back, his white eyeballs starting from their sockets, his mouth contorted in a ghastly grimace: Had a listener been very near, he might have heard a noise as of dry twigs crack- ling and a muffled death-rattle. The Huachipairi’s limbs shuddered, stiffened, and relaxed. The shadow moved on and left kim! Across the grass it flitted to the nearest malocca, obscured for an instant the square of moonlight in the open doorway, and disappeared within. . Incomprehensible shadow! , One witness there was td the latter phase of this mystery. An old woman— the same who had taken Kate her supper— had been restless. Unable to sleep, she had crept to sit in the doorway of her hut. She saw the sentinel fall, and she started up to go to him. But when she saw the shadow acting independently, it was too much for her. Down on her stomach she went, and pressed her withered face against her door-sill, praying to ll the gods she knew, evil as well as good. When she dared to look forth again, she saw the white woman walking in the moon- light toward the river wall, her own shadow = ATE UN Original from OHIO ST AT Soli v5 IOO SS CO