Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

172 got away in a flying proa, and had the good luck to be picked up by an Island ship coming up from Port Darwin. She had thought she was well ahead of Liu Tang. That’s why she couldn’t make out how he had got to Singapore in time to come aboard the Chauwve-Souris as a stowaway. He must have had the luck to fall in with one of the coastal packets from Timor. “As for the rest,’’ he concluded, “we can only guess what happened. On dis- covering that his wife had escaped— obviously to warn me—Scala must have boarded the motor launch as soon as it came back from Java. He probably had to wait three or four days, while the Malay in charge went on the bust in Surabaya. When he got to Singapore, he probably found out from the harbor master that the Chauwve-Souris had come up to Nolak. And as he knew I was here, he guessed his wife was on board.” “And what’s happened now?’ Eade asked. “‘What do you think the game is?” “T know no more than you,” said the other. ‘The only thing we’re certain about is that Scala’s not far from here, and we'll hear from him sooner or later.” — . “Supposing he attacks Headley’s bungalow?” suggested Eade. “If Eugene Pai is with him he will have been told his wife is there.” “Headley’s all right,” said Cartwright. “T’ve warned him, and he has armed all his Malay servants. I offered him the two policemen, but he said he didn’t want them. He’s got about fifteen men under arms; and when it’s dark as this, the one weapon I personally shouldn’t like to run up against is the Malay kris.” Eade nodded in satisfaction, and hurled the butt end of his cheroot over the veranda, the sparks flying in the road like a kind of firework. ‘“‘There’s one aspect of this business I can’t make head or tail of,’ he observed. “Scala wants Eugene Pai’s blood almost as much as yours. Pai didn’t strike me as being a man with any more pluck than CHARLES GILSON a cockroach. Besides, he’s got a guilty conscience. One would have thought that he would rather run a hundred miles than find himself face to face with either Liu Tang or Scala. And yet you tell me that he has deliberately gone down the river, presumably to meet Scala by appointment!” Charles Cartwright shrugged his shoulders as he got to his feet. “IT haven’t the remotest idea,” said he, yawning and stretching his arms. “You may depend upon this, however: Before many hours are passed we'll learn the truth—or some of it.” CHAPTER VII THE JUNGLE PATH ADE didn’t feel. in the least dis- posed to go to bed; he had slept for quite a long time that afternoon, and his cousin’s story had given him food for reflection. Stretching himself on one of the long chairs on the veranda, he lit another cheroot. As for Charles, he went to the head of the steps and stood there a moment, gazing into the black night in the direc- tion of Headley’s bungalow. Suddenly he turned and spoke to Eade. “I’m going round the outpost line,” said he. “These Sikhs can be trusted, but it’s as well to see they’re doing their job.” He went down the steps, and Eade could hear his footsteps on the gravel as he crossed the road. Suddenly a low, breathless voice, with something of a snarl in it, the words clipped short in the broken English of every native of India from Kashmir to Colombo. “Who goes there?” Muffled voices. And then silence again. Two minutes afterward, the same cha!- lenge from the back of. the house, from the jungle behind the kitchen. A little after, Cartwright reappeared at the head of the steps. He was so tall that his head almost touched the eaves. “Well,” said his cousin, “they’re on the comicbooks.com