Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 146 No. 4 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

he two. MENGES Sormed to where the 1 pink-and-gray coated trotting bullocks were tethered by their short horns to a tree, and leading them to the cart, made fast the bamboo yoke across their necks. “* Get into the cart, Bootea,”” Hunsa com- manded, for the girl had not moved. “I will not!” she declared. I’m going back to Ajeet; he is not dead—it is a trick.” “ He is dead,” Hunsa snarled, seizing her by the arm. The Gulab screamed words of denuncia- tion. “ Take your hands off me, son of a pig, accursed man of low caste! Ajeet will kill you for this, dog!” At this the wife of Sookdee fled, racing back toward the camp. One of the men darted forward to follow, but Hunsa stayed him, saying: “Let her go—it is better; I war not upon Sookdee.” He had the Gulab now in the grasp of both his huge paws, and holding her tight, said rapidly: “ Be still, you she-devil, ac- cursed fool! You are going to a palace to be a queen. The son of the Peshwa de- sires you. True, I also, have desire, but fear not for, by Bhowanee, it is a life of glory, of jewels and rich attire that I take you to} so get into the cart.” But Bootea wrenched free an arm and struck Hunsa full upon his ugly face, screaming her rebellion. “To be struck by a woman!” Hunsa blared. ‘“ Not a woman, but the spawn of a she-leopard! Why should not I beat your beautiful face into ugliness with one of these sandals of a dead pig!”’ He lifted her bodily, calling to the man upon the ground, the other having mounted behind the bullocks: ‘‘ Put back the leather wall of the cart that I may hurl this out- cast widow of a dead Hindu within.” _ Bootea clawed at his face; she kicked ~ ag her voice screaming a call to _* - * * ed was thrown almost to his haunches, his breast striking the back of the decoit. The bullocks, nervous little brutes, startled by the huge white animal, swerved, and before the man who sat astraddle of the one shaft gathered tight the cord to their nostrils, whisked the cart to the road- side where it toppled over the bank for @ fall of fifteen feet into a ravine, carrying bullocks and driver with it. 3 The moonlight fell full upon the face of the horseman, its light making still whiter the face of Captain Barlow. And Bootea recognized him. It was the face that had been in her vision night and day since the nautch. “Save me, sahib/” she cried. men are thieves; save me, sahib!”’ The hunting crop in Barlow’s hand crashed upon the thick head of Hunsa in ready answer to the appeal. And as the sakib threw himsef from the saddle the jamadar, with a snarl like a wounded tiger, dropped the girl and, whirling, grappled with the Englishman. Barlow was strong; few men in the force, certainly none in the officer’s mess, could put him on his back; and he was lithe, supple as a leopard; and in combat cool, his mind working like the mind of .a chess player. But he realized that the arms about ** These him were the arms of a gorilla, the chest against-which he was being crushed was the chest of a trained wrestler; a smaller man would have heard his bones cracking in that clutch. He raised a knee and drove it into the groin of the jamadar; then, in the slight slackening of the holding arms as the Ba- gree shrunk from the blow, he struck at the bearded chin. It was the clean, trained short-arm jab of a boxer. But even as the gorilla wavered stagger- ingly under the blow, a soft something slipped about Barlow’s throat and tightened like the coils of a python. And _ behind something was pressing him to his death. The other Bagree, springing to the assist- ance of Hunsa, had looped his roomal about the safib’s throat with the deft art of a thug. | Barlow’s senses were going; swam; in his faney he@u (sex