Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

fifteen feet, to fall on his head with a broken neck on the hard turf of the com- pound. Arnold’s pistol was struck from his hand by the glancing blew of a club. Groping to recover it, his fingers encountered the long, straight haft of a pasuba spear. He seized it and leaped up, striking and thrust- ing as madly as any savage of them all. Once a brown face, living or dead he knew not, was projected at him across the barricade, and he crushed its jaw with a blow of his fist, nor felt the pain of his - bruised knuckles until long afterward. “ They give, senor! Santos Dios! they give!’ shouted Tomas, smiting so fast and furious that it seemed the club, tough as it was, must splinter in his powerful hands. He had forgotten his fear of the Paititian, and Jagui fought shoulder to shoulder: with him now, hissing like an aroused ser- pent, and hardly less deadly. The Aguar- unas fell back. Save for the dead man who hung across ¢he barricade, the door- way was Clear. From his post of observation in the shadows the curaca called his warriors back. He found his method of attack proving teo costly. Nineteen of his hard- lest fighting men were down, and none had passed that grim, dark doorway, where Death himself seemed to be keeping ward. The chief understood little about firearms. For aught he knew, the devilish instru- ment which was now spitting again in the hands of the white man was inexhaustible. Another way must be found to silence it. Gashed and breathless, but wildly ex- -ultant, Tomas wiped the blood from his — face and eyes and gasped bitter taunts at the backs of the retreating foe. The cot- ton shirt had been torn from the Aymara’s body, baring the herculean muscles which had wrought such terrible havoc in the méleé, and his blood was oozing from a dozen spear-cuts; but his life was whole within him still, and his splendid courage rose superior to the death which he believed was near. “ Madre de Dios, seftor, ” he said, lean- ing on his club and counting the slain; if we die to-night, and I think we shall, it is something to have lived for such fight- ty Google LAND OF THE SHADOW PEOPLE. 479 ing. Many more will die before we are done. Well will we revenge the deaths of the little master and your friends, and the ‘bad man who was so brave. “Aye, kiss your loved one, sefor, and be not ashamed. This night you fight for her as God lets few men fight; and kisses are all the sweeter when death is standing by: to count them.” ‘What big man say, Ah-meer-e-can?”’ asked Nee-Nah, clinging to Jim’s arms with trembling fingers. He told her. ‘ And I am afraid that he is right, sweetheart,” he said, sorrow for her laying hold of his throat. “ Little girl, little girl, why didn’t you keep out of this!” She raised a hand to pat. his lips. ““Nee-Nah very glad die with you, Ah- meer-e-can,” she whispered. ‘“ Only sorry if you sorry.” “Hello, senor! here comes one who is mad!” cried Tomas, raising his club. Jim leaned to look out of the doorway: Across the grass and over the bodies of the dead warriors a lithe brown figure came leaping, brandishing a spear and screaming as it came, while a chorus of wild cries rang behind it. Somehow, from word of woman or war- rior, it bad come to the ears of Lanao that a white girl was in the malocca with Ar- nold. While the other Aguaruna women cowered moaning in their homes, quaking at sound of the white warrior’s thunder, the girl, her wild heart swollen by an agony of jealousy that put her above all fear, rushed out to watch the battle. — Each fresh memory of the young white man’s repulses fanned the flame within her. So it was because of this that Lanao had been spurned! Let her once lay her hands on this pale rival, and she should wish that she never had been born! So Lanao swore as she ran; for she had much of her father’s spirit and little of his caution. She reached the curaca’s side as his battered tribesmen trooped about him, glad of his order of retreat. At sight of them, and knowledge that her rival was still unharmed, perhaps at that moment in the arms of her Jover, Lanao went quite mad. | <a) SS CO THE O 0: STATE IN