Adventure Magazine Cover — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

82 woman happened to be the favorite wife of Karea, who was the big king of the lives and destinies of some half-a-dozen of the larger coast villages. Whether it was the loss of his pretty woman that made him angry, or whether it was really the opportunity he saw in the overt act to make an excusable raid into the interior and clean up things in general, will never be known. Sufficient it is that Karea roused his people and set the war-drums beating. Three nights after the abduction Karea marched on Loaan and wiped it from the memory of man, driving some hundreds of women and children into captivity and putting the male defenders. to the sword, the same being of sharks’ teeth. This had naturally hurt the feelings of Lu, who was as great a king over some hali- a-dozen of the big interior villages, as was Karea over his coast-people. Loaan was Lu’s largest village, or had been, and besides the matter had become a thing of personal honor, for Karea had taken with Loaan a. pile of smoked heads that had taken Lu many years to collect. Lu sent forth his runners, and bade the women sound upon the hollow tree-drums. The war was on. Now all this would not have mattered a brass button to the trader, except for the fact of his business being temporarily stopped, had not two runners arrived at his house practically simultaneously. They came with the early dawn, the morning after the Marquesan had told his master of the outbreak of war, and they came in haste, panting and sweating with their exertions. They met before the trader’s veranda and waited for him to appear, glaring and snarling at each other. That they did not fight was because fighting was tabu on the trader’s ground, a tabu backed by a Win- chester rifle, which the natives duly appre- ciated. The trader was much embarrassed, for he guessed the messengers’ errand. He called the Marquesan to him and ordered food and drink to be served to the messen- ger of Karea, while he led Lu’s man to the far end of the veranda out of earshot. Sullenly Karea’s man watched them talk- ing together, noted the eloquent gestures of the native, saw the white man shake his head, the native get angry and then threat- ening, the white man cold and brusque, and finally angry himself. Karea’s man began _ Adventure to grin. As Lu’s man passed him, loping off toward the jungle that lay beyond the sur- rounding grove, he shook with noiseless laughter and poked out his tongue. Lu’s man stopped and scowled with a bitter exclamation. “Pig!” he shouted, showing his teeth. _ Karea’s man bounded to his feet and raised his war club. “Pig!’? he screamed. Both natives took up spectacular atti- tudes, grimacing and threateningly snarling at each other. - “Maru!” The trader spoke sharply to the Marquesan as he watched the by- play. The Marquesan grinned and took down a ray-tail whip from a nail in one of the veranda posts. At the first cut he laid open the back of Lu’s messenger, causing him to spring away hurriedly and forget all about his opponent. ‘Beat it!” roared the trader, and the na- tive broke for the jungle. Karea’s man started his huge silent laughter again as he watched his rival disappear, until the ray- whip cut into his thighs. Then he ceased laughing and glared at Maru. “Come here!’ The native Jooked at the trader quickly, noted the hand resting on the Colt-butt, and then his club sank to, the ground. He came sullenly forward. Maru hung up the whip and stood watching his master, his hand fondling the handle of the Malay kris that protruded from his scarlet Join-cloth. Karea’s man delivered the message he had brought, and then the same pantomime was gone through as had been with Lu’s man. It ended by the trader kicking the native off the place altogether, and hasten- ing him with a shot above his head. The trader looked sertous when he returned, and sitting on the veranda steps he lit the in- evitable cheroot. ‘‘We’re in bad now, Maru,” he said slow- ly. “Karea thinks I ought to let him have rifles and ammunition for the sake of his friendship, and Lu has precisely the same notion. Each king sends a sort of veiled threat that he will come and take what he wants if it is refused. Well, let ’em. We'll show ’em!”’ Maru did not fully understand all the trader said, but he gathered the general drift of the talk and nodded gravely. “Tf they do raid me, either of them, I can’t COnniclboooks (C@