Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

48 “You've no chance, Linkinyear. word to the Moplah chiefs. “Perhaps they’ll come here to talk things over. Your wise course is to march back along the railway line and report. By the time you come this way again I’ll have more news for you.” “Rats!” answered Linkinyear rudely. “Your eggs are good, Mr. Ommony. Your advice is rotten!”’ Tll send Bee Rite OMMONY produced cigars and summoned his reserves of patience, which exceeded those of his visitor by the amount of twenty years’ accretion at compound interest. His trump card was that Linkinyear would never be able to find Podanaram without a guide, and none could possibly be obtained unless he, Cottswold Ommony, consented. With that for final argument, and a fund of ex- perienced geniality for the front line, he wore the younger man down, while eleven of the rank and file smoked pipes and lis- ened through the open window. The dispute lasted nearly all morning, with interruptions when Ommony went out to render off-hand justice between quarreling village folk, or to give orders for the guidance of the gangs. Whenever a native sent in word to Ommony, Linkin- year would follow out to the veranda and demand to know in his best attempt at the vernacular if he knew the way to Podana- ram. Hehadno success. They all looked equally stupid. And he never once caught Ommony making signals with hand or eye, although he was smart enough to be suspicious and to watch for them. Om- mony was not smart—merely wise. Linkinyear would not return to G. H. Q. as long as it was humanly possible to remain away. His orders were to give the Moplahs something to think about, and if possible to make them believe that an attack in force was already under way against them. He would not sit down and be quiet in Ommony’s bungalow while Ommony went to Podanaram to make inquiries, even if that should be permitted by Ommony’s Moplah friends. Nor would he let Om- mony go alone on any terms. In fact, he vowed and declared that if Ommony’s refusal to reproduce a guide should oblige him to return to G. H. Q. it would be his duty to take Ommony along - with him. Whether or not it was his duty, _ Adventure he would do it. of that. But the older man’s moderation and good humor were having more effect that the youngster realized. Linkinyear yielded nothing of his demands, but gained nothing. He did not want to return along the line with Ommony in tow; yet Ommony, by He convinced Ommony everlasting obstinacy and exasperating good temper, obliged him to threaten that again and again as the only alternative to Podana- ram. He threatened it almost pleadingly, reducing himself to a mental condition in which he would have cheerfully offered Ommony a year’s pay to yield, if only that would not have made himself ridiculous. At last, being full of youth and over- running energy, he reached the stage where the judge and his wife in Podanaram seemed to be the only goal worth striving for, and Ommony, biding that time, recognized it. “There’s only one way we can agree,” he said at last. “Name it!’ snapped the youngster. “No toss of a com! I won’t gamble on it! I go to Podanaram, or you come with me to Go: “An armed party leaving here for Pod- anaram would be attacked and butchered for a certainty,” said Ommony. © “But I might obtain permission for an unarmed party to go and speak with the prisoners.” “Fine!” agreed Linkinyear. “D’you think they’d swap the judge and his missus against the lot of us? That ’ud be good odds from their standpoint. Equally good from ours. -If anything should happen to Mr. and Mrs. High Court Kadz our side would have to be enormously vindictive, whereas we wouldn’t matter. Nobody would care if we got scoughed. The game is to get the judge and his wife away to safety.” “The Moplahs are not such fools,” Ommony answered, looking Linkinyear candidly in the eye. “They know the value of a judge and an English lady. They’d set no more value on you and your men than G. H. Q. would! No. But you may be able to talk to the prisoners and come away.”’ “All right, Dll go you!”’ ‘You would have to leave your weapons here.” Linkinyear demurred. “Tt’s against all the rules of war and the British service! I wouldn’t mind promis- ing not to use them. We could agree to Gomichbooks (EO)