Adventure Magazine Cover — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

Buried Gods the native. However, the extreme need of sleep soothed him more than anything else; and, stretched out by the communal fire with the revolver tucked inside his shirt for safety, he slumbered until the dawn. They marched for another two days. On the morning of the third he saw signs of cultivation, and passed bunches of cattle and several small villages. Mount Elgon now appreciably closer, seemed less impos- ing because the slopes are very long. The morning march was longer than usual. It was near to noon when, in the blazing heat in a rolling, lightly timbered country, they came upon native shambas, the size of which suggested a big village. Soon hordes of men, women and children came trooping along the paths from all sides to stare solemnly at a perspiring white man marching with a coat over his head. The village, Dorsay noticed, was stock- aded, whereas the smaller ones had not been; evidently the place of the chief, Tamba. Inside the barrier were irregular streets of huts with odd chickens, with open beaks, roosting in the shade, and skinny goats doz- ing. He almost cried out in relief when he saw, seated beside one who was evidently a chief, beneath the shelter which is the vill- age clubhouse, a white man. A wild hope that he would prove to be the doctor died, for the fellow was too big. Then as he bent beneath the low roof he ~ exclaimed in astonishment. The man was Dorkin, the Australian lumberman. V “GOOD Lord!” ejaculated Dorsay in astonishment. “What on earth are you doing here?” “Fort it wus yew,’ commented Dorkin. “‘Where’s the dotty little doctor?” “That’s what I want to know,” returned Dorsay anxiously. “A Somali party raided us and carried me off, and then these fellows picked me up. Don’t they know whether our caravan was wiped out or not?” “Nope. They come in ’ere and tells the old man they’d captured a white man. I wondered if it was yew, knowing as yew’d be along this w’y.”’ “Look here,” remarked Dorsay, who was still standing, “can’t you get me a chair or something?” T5 ‘“‘Ain’t no more. But you’d better pow- wow with this black fella ’ere.”’ He indicated the chief in the chair beside him, a fairly big, corpulent man with a big-bore cartridge stuck through an ear. “But that’s it! I can’t speak a word.” Dorsay looked about him, naturally uncomfortable at the idea of sitting on the ground when a native was in a chair, and squatted on the floor. “Tf you'll interpret I should like to ask him about sending out to find the doctor.” Dorkin grinned with his broken teeth. “Yew gotter ruddy cheek!” “T have?” demanded Dorsay. “How?” “Only meant this ’ere black fella thinks e’s a big bug,” said Dorkin after a moment’s hesitation. “Goon. Wot djer want?” ‘Well, tell him that our caravan was at- tacked and I was carried off. I killed the man, but lost my way and his people found me. “Tell him I want him to send back to the place near where they found me, and see if the doctor is still there; if not, to find out whether the caravan was wiped out, and if not to follow up the trail and tell the doc- tor where I am.” “Want a —— of a lot, doncher?” “Why, what do you mean?” “Wotjer going to pay ’im wiv?” “Oh, we'll pay him as soon as he fetches the caravan here.”’ “But if there ain’t no caravan?” “Oh, well, I can bu 2 He hesitated, recollécting the stolen coat with the thousand rupees in the pocket. “Vou know me. I suppose you'll sell me some goods?” Dorkin looked at him and grinned again. “Orl right, chummie; don’t you worry.” He turned to the chief, who with the crowd of natives had watched every gesture and expression during the conversation. “OQ son of Bafala,” began Dorkin, “this white man was the servant of El Hakkim, the doctor, who, he tells me, hath been taken as a slave by the Somalis. At the beginning of the fight he ran away, so that your people found him wandering with his heart still stuck fast to his ribs. As he belongs to an inferior tribe I will keep him unless—”’ he looked at Dorsay interestedly, watching him, and smiled—“‘unless the son of Bafala wishes to trade for something for which he knows my belly yearns?” “Q Broken Teeth,” replied the old chief COMIC OOO KS (E@)