Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 194: what you’re looking at

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

192 Tengga, the High Priestess, it was, surely enough; and she stood thus before us as if to bar our way. But she could not bar our way now, with the achievement of our purpose so near at hand. I did not pause. Startled though I was by her unexpected, her even dramatic appearance, I did not pause. I drew close to her. She lifted her golden arms, glinting with those platinum bands, to either side, level with her shoulders, as if indeed to bar our way. Ina voice that I thought was pitched unnaturally loud—as if for the sole purpose that others beside ourselves might hear— she said: “Ahél’”? You have come. To put back the Green, Green God you stole, you have come!” It was not a question. It was a state- ment, a denunciation. It was slowly ut- tered, carefully and clearly enunciated. It was said, in short and to repeat, in such a manner that others beside ourselves might hear. I peered about me in the shadows of the = palms, now to the right, now to the left. I saw no one. Yet in a voice that others be- side ourselves might hear—if they were lis- tening—I said: ‘We have come; yes. We have come to put back that which you, L7p-Plak-Tengga, stole from the Dobo! Now out of our way, out of our way, you she-cat!”’ And I made to walk on. | But she swung her arms before her and extended them toward me. Her wickedly slanting eyes blazed; her eyes blazed with a look of hate that was enough to burn and sear one. And she whispered sibilantly: “Listen, white man. Three times you cast me aside and more than three times. You smote me; you spat upon me; you heaped offal upon my head—Aé! upon the head of Lip-Plak-Tengga, High Priestess of the Poonan, who is too high for any Poo- nan to kiss, to whom the Poonan may never hope to attain. You did all that; but now —now I have you in my fingers! In my fingers I have you, I say, and I will wring all life from you—so!”’ And she clenched and worked her slim fingers together as if between them she were wringing out some wet rag. But I laughed at her. I was altogether unafraid. I was used to her threats by now; and I felt, if all she could do was to threaten Adventure me there was no good reason now for me to be afraid of her. I made determinedly to stride past her. But again her hands stopped me; only this time and firmly they were pressed against my chest. “Stop! Step not a step nearer!” she cried stridently. ‘You must obey! Ahé/ You must obey; for I, Lip-Plak-Tengga, com- mand it and I, Lip-Plak-Tengga, must be obeyed. I can crush you at any hour with a single word!” “Damme!” I swore. ‘Do you think your threats will stop me now with that Dobo but a jump away. Do you, do you!” I choked with rage. and savagely I brushed aside her hands. I was wild at the idea that she should think her threats could thwart us, and we so near to the end of our desperate errand. I was wild with a Berserker rage. I did not care, then, if there were Poonan lurking in the shadows of the palms. I had a gun and I could get them. I could get some of them —six of them anyway—ere they got me. I lifted my right foot to step toward her, “Tl show you!” I exploded, but I put that foot down, suddenly, half-— way in its natural stride. My bride’s frantic fingers were on my arm, pulling me back with the strength of some abnormal fear. Her frantic whisper was in my ears: “Do you not see—do you not see It! There, there—behind her—in the shadow of those palms!’ I looked. Behind Lip-Plak-Tengga, in the black shadow of a clump of palms, surely enough, I saw something—a man. ‘No; not a man either; only a man’s head. The body of that man was completely en- veloped in the black concealing shadow cast by the thick plumes and stout trunks of those palms, and nothing of him was visible, save and except the head that was thrust out from the cloaking darkness into the moonlight. That head loomed above my head, as I stood there erect and tense, just as my head had loomed above the heads of the squat Poonan. But he was no Poonan. He was taller than I; to judge from the height of his extended head, he was over seven feet tall—preposterously tall. . And yet his head was not such a large head; it was but little larger than my head; indeed, for such a preposterously tall man, it was a small head. Thrust out on a thick neck from the blackness of the palms, the face was only j Eomichbooks (E(0)