Adventure Magazine Cover — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

The Temple only to find Kilgore and get clear. He turned to Esrun with an angry word. “Enough of this! Where is my friend?”’ “Come,” Esrun laughed softly as she turned. “There is another chamber that you must visit, first. “There I have pre- pared a gift for you, Rajput lion!” Severn followed her closely. These words | evoked a swift alarm in him. In the next chamber the trap would be sprung! His light showed him that they returned to the main passage, then crossed this and entered another transverse branch. As be- fore, this was short and opened into a cham- ber of some size. “Is the lamp burning?” asked Esrun. “There is only darkness,” growled Severn. No lamp was lighted in the chamber. “Then it has gone out! But wait—there may be some oil left init.” Esrun stepped forward, quite ignorant of the electric torch that played upon her. Severn glanced about the place, and saw that in some far day it had served as an armory. Here were fantastic weapons of all sorts, and armor; dust-covered, rust- frayed, useless. “Have you any matches?’ demanded Esrun, turning. ““No.”’ : “Then come! Give me your arm—I will guide you.” Severn threw the beam of light about the yellow figure. He saw that she stood by the wall, and made fast to a great ring in the wall there was a set of huge manacles. At this, a laugh rose in him—laughter, not unmixed with pity for the blind creature who was playing out her little treachery. He stepped forward and touched the figure with his left arm. Her fingers seized his arm—swift as light, the rusted manacles clamped about the wrist. They had been oiled and made ready for this task. “The lion is snared!” Esrun stepped quickly away and from her burst one wild laugh of triumph that reechoed dizzily in the cavern. “The Rajput lion is netted! And here is a gift for you, Rajput, a gift _ dyed with my own hands! Wait!” She caught up a pile of yellow cloths and thrust them at Severn. Then a match ~ flamed in her hand and she held it up so that her captive might see the gift.. “Turban cloth and robe for the royal Rajput!” she shrilled. ‘Saffron-dyed, the yellow robes of death! Take them and wear of the Ten The match flickered down from her hand. Severn was examining the manacles. He saw that he had no hope of getting free from them; so quietly he began to unfasten the mechanical arm which was bound fast. He could no longer hesitate.’ The moment for action was at hand. He must stake every- —— “And here is another gift for you, rajah’s n!”’ cried the woman’s voice. ‘A gift of leprosy, a gift of death and disease——”’ Under .the flashlight, Severn saw her leap forward. Horror seized upon him as her hands fell upon his false arm and her shroud was brushed aside. Her teeth closed upon the false hand—she was deliberately en- deavoring to bite Fandi Singh, to infect him with the dread living rot that had blinded her. | Severn stepped back. He laid down the torch with the beam still playing. From the woman burst a frightful shriek as she perceived the trick—the false arm dangling loose in the manacle. In desperation, Severn caught up the yellow cloths and flung himself upon the creature. He looped the cloth about her throat, about her upper arms; the shrouding robe fell away, revealing all her ghastly death-in-life. One hand flashed up a re- volver—Severn tore it away and wound the cloths more tightly. Try as he might, he could not avoid con- tact with the awful thing that flung itself about in his arms. Shriek after shriek echoed through the cavern. Esrun strug- gled and twisted like a mad thing. Ham- pered by having but one hand, Severn managed none the less to get fresh windings of the yellow cloth about the creature. . He was sickened by the very touch. A mad panic upgrew within him—as when a man touches some-repulsive creeping thing in the dark and goes mad with a frantic horror, a desperate frenzy to kill the loath- some thing! Severn cried out incoherently, as a man cries when fighting. with the creature, wound the cloths tighter, fought back the insane impulse to strike and slay with the first weapon to hand. Before he finished, he saw that it was-in sober truth a madwoman with whom he was dealing. ‘The shock of finding herself so tricked, perhaps, had finished that dis- eased brain. When the creature sank down at last amid her mufilings, her voice never: S 171 them, great rajah, lion of Rajputana!’’ Gomichboo He struggled — Eom