Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 186: what you’re looking at

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

176 Adventure of sapling logs burned off and strung together with bark fiber, containing about a dozen volumes, of which the most con- spicuous were a volume of the Royal Geographical Society’s journals, a Swin- burne and a Rabelais and some chunky volumes bound in canvas; at the far end was a green canvas table on which, set in orderly array before a shaving-mirror, were a number of small objects which gleamed in the half-light. Chewing a rib of goat, the doctor rose stealthily for a surreptitious peep at a complete manicure-set and hair-brushes in ivory, gold inlaid. As he handled them curiously, he observed on each one a crest of what appeared to be a naked scimitar blade clasped by a mailed hand. The little man took the bone from the nest of his beard to grin as he remarked: “Totemism! Complete case. Most in- teresting, bless the dear! No wonder they wanted him for a medicine-man!”’ The sound of the balks of the gate being dropped into place sent him scuttling back guiltily to his seat on the calabash. “Do yourself well!” he observed as Dukely entered. “Oh yes. But, by the Lord, Doc, old man, if it hadn’t been for my pals there, I couldn’t have stood it. My God, no!” The expression in his eyes as they glanced at the primitive library was almost like a dog who knew he is about to be parted from his master. He swore quietly and remarked, ‘““D’you know, Doc, the hardest thing’s goin’ to be to leave my pals there tonight.” “Rot,” said the doctor with the rib of goat in his beard. “You can get other editions.”” But with a glance at the bulky canvas books, “It does seem a pity to leave these note-books. They are, aren’t they? Um.” Warren-Dukely sighed as he stretched himself on the bed. “Queer,” he observed, staring at the grass roof, “‘a while ago I was willing to— oh, cut a dean’s throat to get out of this hell, an' now, when I think I’m good as free, I’m wanting to raise Cain ’cause I can’t take my worldly goods an’ chattels with me.” “Human nature, ol’ boy,” commented the doctor, chewing away as contentedly as a terrier at the bone. “Oh, I beg your pardon, ol’ man!”’ sud- denly cried Dukely, springing from his bed. “Look here, you-make yourself comfortable here! Yes, yes, Courtesy goes to the ir wal here!” “Umgh, Umgh,” grunted the doctor through his bone. “Sit down an’ don’t bea oo I'm all right.”’ “No, no.” Dukely dragged one yellow pillow from the bed and sprawled ss the floor. “Turn in when you feel like it. Anyway, as soon as you've finished sitting on my wardrobe, I'll change. They’d probably put me in gaol at Kavaballa’s if I arrived in this kit!” he added with a slight return of the hysterical note in his voice, <g THE doctor, who appeared to have ee lost every trace of his normal irri- = tability, did not dispute the point but, having finished another bone and drunk some more milk, rolled on to the bed and was asleep in five minutes. Flies buzzed in freedom, walked upon the doctor’s nose and danced upon his eyelids with im- punity; they essayed to hold a carnival upon the long figure in khaki crouched upon the floor but were repulsed by the bony hand of perfect nails. Shadows dwindled toward the west. Parrots began to squawk; a wart-hog and his family nosed inquisitively around the palisade and went a truffling farther up the glade. Hornets played busily between the forest and a nest of clay beneath the eaves. A lizard progressed in suspicious darts across the earthen floor, reached the calabash of goat abandoned by the doctor and feasted most lizardly upon the swarming flies. Suddenly a streak of cobalt blue struck the empurpled lizard like dulled lightning, and a small snake, startled by a throttled gurgle, slithered into a hollow in the wattle and daub wall. From the southern end of the glade parrots streamed, screeching a pessimistic warning. Warren-Dukely stirred and arose as his keen ears caught a distant chanting. He awoke the slumbering doctor. “What the—’ mumbled the doctor resentfully. “Oh.” He sat up abruptly. “Oh Lord, yes, I’d forgotten. What's the matter?” “Curtain’s going up, old man. Pull yourself together. Yov stop here an’ don’t come out unless I call. I’ve got to go an’ parley with our pal, Yamala. He’s chant- ing Gilbert an’ Sullivan stuff down there Sieegseom ‘