Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

Benefit of Doubt “Give me your weapon, and sit down!” ordered Ommony. The mullah obeyed in both particulars. “T was scratching myself,” he explained. “T wasn’t going to use that.” “Allah’s own truth!’ agreed Ommony. “Tt wouldn’t have gone off. Here, take it.” The mullah stored the Mauser away again with an air of drawing comfort from, it nevertheless. “We've got to do something quick!’ said King. He tapped the mullah’s knee with an arresting finger. “It is not too late for you to put yourself right! We are men worth making friends of, Ommony and I. Can you bring that officer and his men back here at once?” “T don’t know where they are,” mullah impotently. Ommony gave King a brief account of how they had come, King interjecting short, quick questions, which Ommony answered in the same laconic code. Then: “Every prisoner in Podanaram, including Judge-Wilmshurst and his wife, is going to be tortured and murdered!” King an- nounced. ‘“‘Some talk of making it a public exhibition. The majority favors doing it in secret and showing the bodies afterward from village to village—commit ’em as accessories—encourage further outrage— offset the influence of Mahommed Babar, who preaches decency and enforces it.” “Better get word to him,” Ommony sug- gested. “T’ve just come from him. Strange fellow. Had a long talk. Seems it was we who drove him to rebellion. Yes, you and I, Cot! ’“Member when we shot Shere Ali? "Member how he flinched, or seemed to? Swears he didn’t. Swears he stepped back to tempt the brute, and had perfect confi- dence in us. When he saw the look on our faces he knew he wasn’t one of us and never would be! That’s his version of it. Says we thought him a coward, and he didn’t care to argue.” “That kind of talk is always true,” said Ommony. “A liar would have invented something plausible.” “T tried to get him interested in Mr. and Mrs. Wilmshurst—heard all about them in a temple where this mullah left me. Mahommed Babar said he was sorry for Mrs. Wilmshurst, hardly interested in the judge, and busy in any event. True, too. Really is busy. They’re flocking to his said the 63 standard in scores every hour. Then there came a rumor about you and a party of British soldiers surrounded and cut up in the jungle. Mahommed Babar. didn’t be- lieve a word of it—gave me leave to live— said he will always consider himself my friend—and hinted that the interview was over. I came hurrying here to investigate the rumor about you and soldiers. It’s bad, Cot. Rotten. What are we going to do?” “T can go to Podanaram,” suggested Ommony. “Worse and worse! ‘They’d kill you out of hand, and impale your head to prove ail ’s loose! No. Think of something else. This mullah. What about him? He cooked the goose. Can he uncook it?” Ommony considered the mullah for a moment. “He has points. He has points,” he an- swered. ‘I wouldn’t trust him out of my sight.” “D’you know where Mahommed Babar is?’ asked King, and the mullah nodded. Both King and Ommony considered in silence for several minutes. Each kept look- ing at the other. The same idea was dawn- ing in both minds and the mullah recognized the birth of a force that would sweep him he knew not whither. “T have been a friend to both of you—to both of you!’ he muttered. “Do you understand that the murder of those prisoners must be stopped?” King demanded at last. The mullah nodded. He would have agreed to almost anything, but he seemed convinced of that. “If we promise to report to the authorities that you did so, are you willing to use your influence to prevent those people from being tortured and killed?” : “In the name of the Lord of Mercies, yes.” “You realize that Mahommed Babar has forbidden outrage from the first? Good. As a mullah you have influence with his men? Good. If you go and argue with his men that this outrage at Podanaram must be prevented, he can not accuse you of being in opposition to hin, can he? Better and better. Go and do that. Go with Ommony sahib. If you do your work cleverly, when Mahommed Babar tells his men that this crime at Podanaram must be prevented, they will have been convinced already. They will obey with alacrity. Small time will be wasted. Will you do that?” ~ comicbooks (ef)