Adventure Magazine Cover — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

Red As the thought of death came to him he found himself wondering in a dull, apa- thetic sort of fashion about the girl’s share in the affair. Had she been a man he would have classed her unhesitatingly with the rest of his murderers. But the thought of her in that gruesome role struck at him like a knife-thrust. He felt himself mentally recoiling from such an attack. Then he found it necessary to put from him the thought of her in any réle. He had first to deal with the Spahi. The fellow stood with feet slightly apart, his hands folded within his voluminous robes, a smile of mingled invitation and insolence on his dark, burned face. Hol- brooke, staring up at him, decided at once that a bullet in that direction would be ammunition wasted and a needless alarm to the man’s confréres. He knew a better way to rid himself of that arrogant, brilliantly attired monster. He would, with a deft twist of his arms about the white-socked legs, unbalance the Spahi from his poised equanimity and send him headlong down the brass stairway. ‘This would save one of the six precious bullets reposing in heir shiny cradle in Holbrooke’s hip pocket and clear the way for the next attack. He began to mount. Half-way up he paused and _ smiled broadly into the face of his host. The Spahi grinned back. Holbrooke mounted again until he stood with his arm-pits on a level with the Spahi’s sandaled toes. He bent quickly, grasped the Arab’s legs and gave them a violent twist to the left, at the same instant throwing his own doubled body in the same direction. It was a tri- umphant attack. Like a huge roll of white and red bunting the body of the Spahi swayed, then plunged headlong over the American’s shoulders and crashed against the door at the foot of the stairway. Holbrooke sprang upward, reached the top stair and faced the unknown. It proved to be a great, oblong room, bare save for a quantity of somber-hued rugs thrown in soft confusion across the oiled floors. On either side were placed, alternately, divans and brass incense-jars that gave forth a heavy ever-sweet perfume. The light of one lamp, swung from the center of the ceiling, cast the room in semi-darkness. And it was empty of anything human save the American. He glanced down the golden stairway at Mist 795 the inert huddled mass of red and white. He saw something, something that made him turn away quickly. The Spahi was lying on his stomach, his legs drawn up: under him. But his head was twisted com- pletely about so that Holbrooke looked squarely into an upturned face with staring eyes and a mouth that leered steadily. The fellow’s neck was broken. Holbrooke stepped softly back into the room. Its silence, its shadowed bareness, the dull flare of its one lamp, the heavy odor rising from the incense-jars, oppressed him. He wished intensely for something human to companion him, even though it were an enemy. He wanted to see some sign of life in that tapestried mausoleum of the late master who lay dead at the foot of his golden stairway. A terrible stillness prevailed. There was no sign of life anywhere, no movement except the padding of the Amer- ican’s reluctant feet across the rugs. Then they, too, ceased to move. He stood be- neath the lamp, listening, listening. Silence mocked him. He looked for doors, win- dows, a distant light. The walls gave back no hint of release. There was no break in the maroon-hued tapestry. It hung in soft, clouded folds, lusterless, shading down to streaks of-_black, like clotted blood upon a partly-healed wound. The silence, the emptiness of the room puzzled him. For he knew that somewhere beyond those concealing tapestries enmity was lurking. He knew, too, that it must soon reveal itself. He was prepared to see the shadowed streaks of black widen sud- denly and reveal a human presence. He was not mistaken. The maroon-hued walls began to tremble faintly, like the delicate shivering of leaves in the wind. And then, as though woven by invisible and magic hands, the white, shrouded figures of men were silhouetted against the tapestry. ‘There were fifteen or twenty of them. They stood, absolutely motionless, facing Holbrooke with grave, mystical, searching eyes. In that unre- laxing glance of many eyes the American read one purpose and desire—his death. beweees SUDDENLY his right arm shot up- x an ward. There was a report, a flash, a drift of gray smoke curling up- ward, and the single lamp in its swinging cradle of brass splintered and fell to the floor. COmiclbook CO