Adventure Magazine Cover — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

Yellow Treasure “So they kidnaped. you to hold over—” Burns began. Suddenly, from some place close at hand but muffled by the thickness of the stone walls, came the thundering boom of a gong. May-sing lifted her head. The brazen call boomed again. “It is the meeting!”’ she whispered, her hand clutching nervously at my coat. Somewhere nearer a door slammed back against a wall. The third roll of the gong sounded louder. “Some one is coming!” whispered May- sing. “Back! Back! If we are together, they kill!” Burns was half through the aperture again before she had finished speaking. I delayed fer one more risky second; and then in obedience to Burns’ command to play unconscious I hurled myself face upward on the slimy floor of our own cell. By ey THE pad of felt-soled shoes ap- xy | proached along the passage; and crazy streaks of light, thrown through the cracks of the cell-door by the moving lantern, swept to and fro across the dripping ceiling. A key turned in the lock. I closed my eyes as the door crashed back, letting in the full glare of the lantern. The man carrying it, I could see through my lashes, was tall, and dressed in some kind of brilliant uniform. Behind him, lined up against the stone wall, I could dimly see a file of armed men. | The officer swung the lantern first over Burns and then over me; and then laughed. “You are not unconscious,” he said in very good English, ‘‘for we have heard you talking together.” Yet, as one does, I stuck to the foolish ostrich trick and kept my eyes closed. “Do not lie so -still, foreign devils,” snarled the Chinese, kicking me viciously in the ribs. ‘You are going to be tried by the Tae-ping Tong in council. After that you will lie still forever and ever.” The kick seemed to me beneath a white man’s dignity. I staggered to my feet. Four of the armed men had followed the officer into the room. Now two of them sprang on me and bound my hands behind me so tightly that the ropes cut into the flesh. Two more were doing the same thing to Burns—powerful giants to whom his struggles made not the least difference. “Forever and ever!” chuckled the officer, 19 as we were pushed into the corridor. “March, foreign devils!” Surrounded by swords, accompanied by dancing black skadows of ourselves and our guards on the rough-hewn ceiling and walls, we stumbled along the stone corridor on our way to the place of doom. V THOUGH, for the honor of our race, we were keeping a tight rein Be) on ourselves and holding our faces as , close as possible to the Oriental standard of blankness, it was with pretty poignant feelings that we saw the officer at the head of our escort step forward to a carved oaken door in the wall of the passage, throw it open and motion our guards to lead us forward into the council-chamber of our enemies; but the effect of the apartment itself when, pricked from behind by sword- points, we stood in it under the glare of a dragon-lamp hung from the ceiling, was so terrible as to make our previous emotions seem as nothing. Our nerves had been keyed up almost to breaking-point by our contact with the in- animate things of medievalism—the stone- walled dungeon with its filth and blackness; the sword-blades and the smoking horn- lantern. Now we were face to face with the dark ages incarnate. The council-chamber was of about the same size as the prison we had just left; with the same rugged walls and the same low stone ceiling—groined at the corners, I saw, with fantastic shapes of dragons. But here the floor was covered with a heavy red car- pet which seemed to give a soft wickedness to its grim strength; and at the far end of the room our judges squatted on silk pil- lows that seemed strangely effeminate for such a place. There were perhaps fifty persons in the chamber, for the walls were lined around with the immobile figures of armed men, standing with their hands folded up the sleeves of their crimson blouses; yet what gripped my attention instantly was that black-dressed group on the cushions. There were six of them, counting one who sat a little to one side on a sort of low throne, and it was impossible to choose which face of the six surpassed any of the others in ex- pression of relentless evil. The five men on the cushions were of the COIN DOOKS © iin