Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

~ . * “jt WAS a barbarously decorated big room in the casa of Datto Parang. The casa stood on the west coast of Tawi Tawi, away down under the pale rays of the Southern Cross. Hanging against the walls of the room on all sides were coarse-woven, gorgeously colored tapestries, and fastened to them were spears, shields, bolos and krises of various designs. Also there was a dried and shriveled head or two—silent, grue- some proof of Parang’s personal prowess as a warrior. The furniture consisted of a number of chairs made of some hard, red- dish wood, crudely but fantastically car- ved. In the center of the room was a long table of pure ebony, its top polished to a mirror finish. At one side of the table sat the daito, and opposité him was Crawson, white man, renegade, commander- in-chief of the datto’s motley but vicious army. On the table between them stood a teak- wood box which was about ten inches long, six by six, bound with heavy iron bands and secured with six powerful locks—two on either side and one at each end. There were also iron rings for handles at each end. The box had no hinges. To open it, the smooth, snug-fitting lid was merely lifted off after all six locks had been unfastened. Parang ,produced a ring containing six keys, unlocked each of the locks, lifted off the lid and burrowed his hand, wrist-deep, into the contents—five hundred thousand dollars in jewels. There were diamonds, rubies, pearls, emeralds and a_ plentiful se of the other and less noted kinds. Le “RESCUED a 2 j Aus SS ~~ Lr. , 2 Author of “The Vengeance of Rooney,” “An Hour,” elc. The datto lifted his hand, palm up, and slowly spread his fingers. There followeda shower like the falling of varigated hail, and the jewels dropped back into the box, scintillating, flashing every color of the rainbow. . Crawson gazed at the little pebbles hungrily as they fell through the datto’s fingers, sparkling and flashing signals of ease, of creature comfort. Five hundred thousand dollars in portable, disposable form. In Sydney, in Paris, with that box —what a life! Crawson had not been in Sydney or in Paris, but he had imagination and gave it free rein. Parang’s small black eyes glowed fanat- ically. Here, indeed, was wealth to buy many guns and more bullets with which to slay the hated Christians. The detto plan- ned to unite the entire Moro forces and sweep the archipelago from Sulu to Luzon, to drive out the Americans and enslave all Christian natives. Crawson had made him believe it possible. In fact, it was Crawson who had origi- nated the idea of accumulating a fund to buy arms andammunition, Shortly after he had established himself as commander of the datto’s army, he laid before the latter his plan for a systematic session of looting to be perpetrated in Mindanao, the proceeds of these incursions to be saved until the sum reached a total of five hundred thousand dollars, “But, sezor,” protested the datto, “all of the rice and bullocks and potatoes in Tawi Tawi and Mindanao put together are not worth five hundred thousand dollars.”