Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 199: what you’re looking at

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

LAND OF THE SHADOW PEOPLE. ‘“‘ Here, Jim—and coming,” was the an- swer, followed by an Irish yell from King Kelly and the wailing war-cry of Nambe. With a whoop, Jim caught up the bewil- Yered Nee-Nah, kissed her for at least the three hundredth time, and whirled her mad- ly around the malocca. “They're alive! They’re all alive! They’ve come at last, sweetheart! Now you will see some Yankee fighting!” Incautiously he hung himself over the barricade and hurled imsults at the curaca and encouragement to his friends. Above all the clamor at the contested gates he made his young voice heard: “Bob, Katherine is safe! | Nee-Nah saved her! Nee-Nah is here with me!” Those words rolled back a weight from Jones’s heart which seemed to have lain there for ages. “Is Kate in there?” he called. ‘““ No, old man; she’s safe in the woods somewhere! I’m standing siege in one of their dirty huts!” » Heedless of his limited supply of ammu- nition, Jim opened fire on the rear of the Aguarunas: but the range was so long that he did them little damage. | In front of his blazing gateway the curece marshaled his warriors to make a grim fight of it. He knew now with whom he had to deal, and he knew their strength. He would give these Antipas a lesson, despite their white allies. But he was so puzzled to know what had befallen at his lower towns. His big drum was calling for aid now, instead of promising it—and there was no answer from below. Coincidence had brought two forces into the field that night. In an interval in the hellish din at the gateway the whistle of a parrot sounded shrill and clear from the eastern forest. Three times it Was repeated. From the darkness at Amold’s elbow arose the piercing reply of Jaqui. It was the turn of Nee-Nah to exult. “We shall not die this night, Ah-meer-e- can!”’ she cried. ‘“ Hualla has come!” Arrived from Paititi with a strong force of fighting men, Isako had met his uncle. They learned from Rasco that the lie which Isako had told in Paititi was like to be a " 18 A Digitized by (Go ogle A8L bitter truth, and their dear priestess indeed in the hands of the barbarians. So Hayalla had taken command and come . on through the forest like a whirlwind. Village after village of the Aguarunas he attacked and took, leaving at each a force to destroy it utterly. Now he had reached the last stronghold and found his signal answered. Just as the great gates crashed down, and Antipa met Aguaruna in a fierce death- struggle among the blazing ruins, Hualla poured his shadowy platoons over the east- ern wall. : On they came, phalanx after phalanx of naked axmen with strange, emotionless faces and skins so attuned to the moonlight’ that as they formed and charged they seemed like a cloud of mist sweeping across the silvered sand of the dance-ground. “Santos Dios!’ breathed Tomas, as he saw them go past him. “ The ghosts of all the Gentiles have come out of hell to fight for us!” ‘Savages, armed with the weapons of sav- ages, nO matter how valiant, could not with- stand the onset of fighting men such as the Paititians, who, in their intangible armor of semi-invisibility, engulfed their foemen in a vapor of death, where warriors fell like corn under the copper axes and were unable to see how to parry or where to strike. Trapped front and rear, there in his gate- way the Aguaruna chieftain died, and with him died most of his bravest tribesmen. Such of the villagers as were able to escape from the compound crept away through the forest and joined the refugees from the other towns in headlong flight for their native lands along the Rio Maranon. Once more there was “ peace ” on Icor- ro’s river. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TWO QUESTIONS. ROPICAL dawn with its gold and pur- ple and blue stole out of the east and looked down on two camps after the battle was done. Not. far from the smoking ruins of the Aguaruna wall Jones’s party and its Antipa Original from CON, G ) STATE UN a) THE OHIO DOO S CO