Adventure Magazine Cover — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

148 With every sense alert the graybeard listened intently—held his breath and lis- tened. All signs of conversation came from behind, came in a long, enclosed trumpet. The bearers were going through a tunnel or passage, and yet up and up. Then the meshilas were lifted almost straight up— and at a furious angle down again. The sounds of conversation carried far- ther, became more hollow. Instinctively the graybeard judged that the passage had broadened out. Five minutes later the meshilas fell with a jolt and the white men were rolled un- ceremoniously out. Their hands and feet were untied, the bandages taken from their eyes. In solid, unfathomable, impenetrable blackness they peeped around—blackness that could be felt, blackness that could be tasted. Whispering and grunting, the bearers turned and moved away. The pad-pad-pad of their bare feet echoed and echoed, grew fainter, died completely out. “Frank! Frank!” Bertie called with cracked, dry lips. “Frank!” And the eeriness of his own voice made his flesh fairly creep. “Here,” the graybeard answered, quite close to him. “What the —— next, Frank? Now what’s happened?”’ “T don’t know, Bertie. Don’t know at all. And I certainly don’t like it.” In his misery Bertie somehow had to smile. “YT don’t suppose you do, Frank. I’m not impressed with things myself, either.” Carefully the graybeard pulled himself over to his pal and touched him softly. “‘There’s a lot more to dislike than you know of, Bertie,” he said very seriously. “Have you got a match?” At once Bertie searched himself and pro- duced a box. Nervously he took a match and tried to strike it. The damp heat of the meshilas had wet the heads of the matches and turned them into a pulp. “No use, Frank,” hesaid. “Sopping wet. Ill have to take care of them till they get dry.” “Well; we must wait,” the graybeard went on still seriously. “Wait I don’t know what for. If it were only Tombs we had to deal with, Bertie, I wouldn’t be worried so much. But did you see the face of the old man who held me up?” - ~ Adventure “No, Frank. I was too busy watching my own man.” . “You didn’t? I saw that face this morn- ing, Bertie—for the first time in almost twenty-five years. The face of Rodney— the man who caused me to lose myself in the heart of Africa, to give up my whole life to the wilds.” Bertie’s hand reached over to the gray- | beard. ——!” he muttered faintly. The awful blackness strained the eyes, and the tired men, still talking, closed them. Then for a while they lapsed into silence. A sharp clicking fell on their ears and their eyes opened. A score of yards away an occasional bright spark glinted, then died out. — | “Is that you, M’Poine?” the graybeard called quietly. “Vehbo, M’Lungu. Kaffirs.” “Any of you hurt?” “No, M’Lungu. fire.’ And M’Poine went busily and me- chanically on with flint and steel, too be- wildered to think if wood were there or not. A spark fell into the tinder and held. Anx- iously the Kaffir blew and fanned it. The spark glowed and spread. Then of a sud- den his scattered thoughts. collected them- selves and the Kaffir stood aghast. “No wood, M’Lungu. Nothing to burn.” he said, in blank dismay... For a second or so: M’Poine whispered, then the soft sound of four men carefully I aad the four crawling off and feeling their way in differ-. ent directions was heard. And at intervals the men called nervously.to each other. From far off, perhaps a hundred feet, came a crackling ‘of twigs, a: snapping of dry wood. “Wood here,” a Kaffir called. laid down for bedding. era Directed by M’Poine’s voice the Kaflir came back .and placed an armful of dry twigs at his feet. Patiently with flint and steel M’Poine worked, then set it. ablaze. The flames danced up. A huge cavern stretching in utter black- ness far past the range of human vision. A towering bubble blown into the side of the earth. The eyes of each white man sought those of the other in mutual bewilderment. “Buried alive, Bertie,”..the graybeard broke out queerly.. ‘Wood JOOK I am trying to make © co S|