Adventure, November 1915 — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

The Gold Lust lying in mausoleums of coral and lava stone while their ancestors slept the last sleep in hidden mountain-caves; of Saxon and Latin, missionary or merchant, soldier of the cross or sailor-trader of the yard-stick—adven- turers all—at rest beneath the tropical ver- dure that sought so speedily to cover up the lifeless clay before it reclaimed it to trans- muted uses. A high-powered car, with three men in the tonneau, came plunging by. Selim crouched in the shadow of one of the pillars of the main entrance, watching the machine as it raced townward, trying in vain to discern features as the car fled past him. High rails of iron shut off the cemetery from the street. By these Selim ran at top speed. The mountain end of the graveyard was uncared for and overgrown, its mounds and tumble-down vaults adrift in the sea of untrimmed growth. At this, its northern border, a ragged hedge separated the ceme- tery from the garden of the house to which Selim was bound. Set back from the road a hundred yards, the house was invisible from the gateway, lost in a riot of vines that clambered up the palms, hung in festoons between them and smothered the coral-block walls of the house. Along the outer wall of gray lava sprawled the cactus leaves of the night- blooming cereus, ten thousand of its silver blossoms wide-eyed to the moon. The -garden held the heavy, depressing fragrance of a mortuary, the house itself was silent and dark as a tomb. The hard convict-made road that led up Nuuanu Valley had shown no sign, but Selim saw in the softer dust of the drive the fresh impression of the tires of a car, enter- ing and leaving. He crept with swift stealth to the house and circled it. All the lower windows were tight-shuttered, those of the upper story looked blankly to the night. As he made a second patrol a dim light showed through a barred window at the back, and vanished. A coco-palm, standing at a sharp angle, grew close by. Selim threw off his shoes and socks and nimbly climbed the slanting stem, with clinging fingers and toes, like a man-ape. There was a heavy sill in the deep case- _ ment, and iron bars guarded the now dark window. The palm trunk came within two feet of the building. Crouching on the tree Selim looked and listened. There seemed 39 no actual window behind the bars, or else the frames that held the glass had been swung inward. As he watched, his quick ears caught the shuffle of feet. The light again dimly il- lumined the room. A woman carrying a candle came towards the window. Selim flattened on the palm trunk. The woman closed the window behind the bars without looking out and the light vanished, the foot- steps deadened now by the intervening glass. Selim slid swiftly to the ground and put . on his shoes.. He had seen enough. The woman was, as he had expected, the nurse of the man in the wheel-chair, still in her linen uniform, but at her throat his swift eyes had seen and recognized in the lamp- light a miniature, set about with pearls and enamel, that Peggy Winton often wore and that Selim had noticed on her gown that same evening. For a moment he considered the situa- tion. The window he had just been survey- ing was barred, the others unapproachable save for a ladder, or closed with heavy iron shutters. He felt certain that his mistress was inside, imprisoned, helpless. But, being an Arab, he possessed the rare faculty of summoning patience to his aid when im- patience spelled impotence. He was an alien. The laws of the country he knew nothing of, save that the police were men of darker color than himself, who spoke for the most part a barbarous tongue. An attempt on his part, alone, at the house-~ breaking that seemed necessary for a rescue, might result in disaster for him and the re- moval of the only man, outside of her ene- mies, who knew of the whereabouts of the irl. That he had been lured by a false mes- sage to give opportunity for kidnaping his mistress was plain to him. Her brother, and Addams, recognized by Selim as the true leader of the expedition, might, missing the girl, find their way to the lonely house from his description of it to them after he had traced the man in the wheel-chair to its doorway; but they did not know positively, as he did, that she had been brought there. And they might not miss her until the next morning, believing her asleep in her own room and not wanting to disturb her. He paused irresolute, then confident that the first and right step was to get in touch with his masters, sped back to the hotel cottage even more swiftly than he had come. 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