Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

foot, but it was described with how many aoe ‘knots Ommony’s feet were tied beneath the ___ horse’s belly. < a Naturally, the village wise-heads had to -__ invent a reason for any such extraordinary turn of affairs, and having no facts to go on _ they depended wholly on imagination, =a Es “ae which is the secret of most news anyhow. _____ They decided that the British were bringing _ 4 ‘in Ommony with the purpose of exchanging _ him against the judge and his wife who were - close prisoners at Podanaram. _~ Whereat was laughter. Who would hold ~ Ommony prisoner for a day? Should they _ let the two prisoners go, whom they cer- ~ tainly could hold for ransom, and accept in _ exchange the one, whom they would have to — release instantly because of friendship and past favors? Moreover, Ommony had dealings with the forest devils, and might inflict disasters on them. Whoknew? Such __ things have happened. How much simpler a = in any event to release Ommony and obtain = his everlasting good-will, incidentally in- ; — = - creasing their own stock of British prisoners, a =a ~ who would no doubt be very useful when ee the time for talking peace should come. _.— That was the argument, and action fol- = lows very close on argument in Moplah- jand. Every step was easy except one, _ which was impossible. There was no way = of surrounding the party in the forest with- ~ out Ommony’s junglis becoming aware of it. So a jungli came hurrying to Ommony’s Stirrup and made noises with his mouth. — ~~ ~Ommony wheeled his pony and addressed ___ Linkinyear, who had refused the offer of a mount because it would make the men feel better if he marched with them. They were ___ all swinging along at a good three miles an E ; hour, carrying their tunics and brushing off ~ flies with bits of twig and stuff—not sorry to halt—rather expecting to laugh, because 3 Ommony’s jokes seemed inexhaustible. : “Whatever happens next, don’t show re- —-sentment or offer to hit back!” said Om- mony unexpectedly, however. He spoke to Linkinyear, but at his men. ‘Our escort -_ are acting in good faith, but we’re surround- _ ed, and we might be attacked if there were _ any hastiness.”’ 3 = They surrounded Ommony to hear his _ explanation, not that he had much to say, _ although Linkinyear shot question after ton at him. =e = z- “Tf you'll let me keep about fifty yards — ahead,’’ Ommony suggested, “‘that will look less as if I were relying on you for protection. The great thing is to show them from the first that we rely absolutely on their respect- ing a flag of truce.” He rode on. They allowed him nearly a hundred yards. So there was plenty of room, and the pony was hardly aware of disturbance behind him when fifty men rushed between Ommony and Linkinyear’s party. It was over so swiftly that Ommony did, not even see what took place. He wheeled his pony and spurred back; but when he got there and forced his way through the yelling crowd, beating them over the head right and left with his hunting crop, most of the men were already dead and Linkinyear was struggling under half-a- dozen Moplahs, who were trying to tie him and at the same time to murder a private whom he was protecting. It was amazing what they took from Ommony without retaliation. He beat them off as a huntsman whips hounds off a kill, cracking open more than one skull with the butt of his loaded whip. But he was too late to save the lives of more than Linkinyear and three men. Two more were so badly wounded as to be obviously in their death throes, and the rest lay with their throats cut Moplah-fashion, which is right back to the spine. Then the escort of four men, who had beén leading considerably in advance for the express purpose of preventing a surprize, came running back and swore with good reason that their honor was involved. They were perfectly ready to fight about it, and would have been killed in turn if Ommony had not threatened to do murder and force them to do violence to himself. Whether Ommony guessed it or not, they had per- emptory orders from their chiefs to do him no injury on any pretext, and he made the most of his immunity as it developed. Linkinyear was nearly off his head—just not quite mad enough to fling himself on the Moplah knives. “You swine!’ he yelled at them in English. “You rotten, dirty blackguards! You know what a white flag means, you! Oh, you swabs! Look what you’ve done, you stinkers! Good, decent fellows marching under flag of truce and—just you wait, that’s all! A hundred of you swine for every decent one of my men you’ve &S <— Bea “comicb * Sig =a os , ae P =n ae > eee, ot a. ~ >, a ae eS ee ee . = > * =