Adventure Magazine Cover — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

_ in the torchlight. Tupahn the Thunderstorm Around us the night noises resounded, and from time to time eyes gleamed at us Twice we saw eyes so widely spaced that they could belong only to one kind of animal—a jaguar, ‘slipping along through the forest and watching us. But the brute did not attack, and when we drew near the Indian settlement we lost sight of him—though he gave a snarling, coughing roar after he disappeared, and we knew he was not far off. At last we came out in the little open space behind the hut of the pajé. Just at the edge of the bush I had to drop one of the torches, which had burned down’so that it was almost blistering my hand; _ though I still had a couple of sticks left, I did not light another. Now that we were in the open it was just as well to approach stealthily, even though we believed all the Tucunas to be in their tribal house. Stepping carefully, we crossed the bare ground with ears strained and eyes peering through the gloom. Overhead the stars gleamed bright, and as we neared the hut its roof loomed plainly against the sky. Past the end of the place we went, along the side, and around the corner where the torn door hung partly open. There we paused, | listening hard. No sound came from within the priest- house. Beyond the doorway all was black and still. From the direction of the maloca came no noise. Pedro following closely. Again we listened, hearing nothing near us. ’ Without waiting for the door to be shut, T struck a match and glanced about. While the match burned I saw nothing new. But as the flame dwindled and died Pedro sucked in his breath sharply and I realized that he had seen something. “The jar!” he whispered excitedly. jar of the snake!” Swiftly I scratched another match. As “The its little blaze flared out I saw what he meant. The broad-bottomed jar holding the dead surucucu had been moved. It still stood on its flat base, and its wicker plug lay near, just.as I had left it. But the vessel now was more than two feet farther to the nght than it had been. And in the ground which had been cov- vered by that wide bottom gaped a black hole. I stepped into the hut, Xx Yaex\ THE match went out. ) Once more I scraped a fresh fire- stick, and this time I gave its flame to a new torch. By the larger light we looked down into the cavity. It was empty. But it had not been empty long. At its edge dirt was broken away, and at the break showed fresh finger-marks; marks made by the hands of some one pulling himself up out of the pit. Lowering the light, I examined the’ hole itself. It looked about five feet deep, and its sides were lined by a tube of woven sticks which would keep them from caving in. “What is it?”’ asked Senhor Tom. We told him what we had found. He nodded: shortly. “That’s one of the things I thought of,” he said. “T’ll tell you why after you look around some more. Get busy now, and move everything.” But before we began a thorough search Pedro noticed something else. “That cursed bat-mask is gone,’ he pointed out. Soit was. The hideous thing had vanished. “A queer thing for an escaping prisoner to carry off,” I said. “Perhaps, though, some one else took it. Before we go, let us see if more holes are here.” Swiftly we moved every jar, stamped on the ground, explored the walls and the roof with our knives. We found no other hiding- place. “Uh-huh,” said our comrade when we told him. “That ends our visit here. I thought of the possibility of a ground-hole for this reason—the Tucunas have a habit of burying their chiefs in big jars under their houses. Knowing this, it occurred to me that the medicine-man might use a burial jar, or anyway a hole in the ground, to con- ceal something that wasn’t dead. “Tf we'd come here a little sooner we might have found what we’ve been hunting for. Now we haven’t much chance of trail- ing anybody until morning. No one knows what may happen before then.” We said nothing. But I thought of that jaguar which had slipped along beside us, not quite willing to attack three men carry- ing fire. If he should meet a lone wanderer with no light, he might be more than willing to make his kill, a) Gomichbook