Adventure, August 1917 — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

126 gathered on the crests, mountains piled on mountains, glooming and glowing as the sun dropped. A strong wind blew tarough the pass and divided the forest below him. The gusts wrestled and tore at hin: as he clung to precarious holds. Once a ‘orrent of rain fell with a rush and drench d him. Then darkness swooped down. ‘T 1rough the cloud masses the stars shone wich cold brilliance. He stumbled on, edging into the gap, fighting with the wind that poured through the cleft, its sudden gusts forcing him to rest, flattened against the mountain wall, thankful for grips on straggling bushes, faint and giddy, but steady of purpose. The schooner had long ago put out to sea. — He had seen her creeping along the reef. Now, with lights out, guided by the phos- phorescence and the sound of the clamorous reef surge, she was racing with him, foot by foot, freighted with death and disaster. He felt sure of making the pass if he could only win to it. Toruki and his men must have come through the gap. Once in the cleft, he could surely find the trail leading to the settlement and, with good fortune, follow it. The wind roared blusteringly at him, plucking his clothes, his hair, playing with him, friendly one moment, holding him firm against the slippery cliff, the next, threatening to fling him headlong into the gulf. Had it blown against him instead of from behind he would never have compassed the climb. At last the gale literally swept him through the notch as the segment of a moon rose over the round of the sea and he gazed down by blurry ridge and indistinct, plumy treetops to where the unseen settlement lay sleeping. Ever afterward the trip held for hin the hazy memories of a nightmare. He stum- bled down the clattering beds of dead tor- rents, the stones sliding with him, or waded thigh deep through swirling streams. At times he hung by his hands and dropped the smaller precipices. What trail there was he soon lost. His clothes were in tatters, his body bruised, his face whipped by vines. For what seemed hours he blundered about in a wood where the brush rose armpit high and he ran blindly into tree stems and tripped over lianas while hanging loops caught him beneath the chin. He came out upon steep slopes where the long piriz grass grew in a natural thatch, slippery as glacier ice, Adventure crossed an old dyke of lava that finished his shoes and made his way at last to a cinder cone that stood out of the guava scrub back of the commissioner’s bungalow. As he plunged up its slope to the rim, the breath coming from his overtaxed lungs in great sobs, he saw beyond the sea, now de- serted by the moon path, the faint tremble of the sky that, heralded the dawn. The stars were wavering like lamps with the wicks turned too low. The moon had curved behind the mountains. Within the half-hour, the natives would be. coming out for their morning swim. Toruki must be close at hand. Loudon braced himself for the final sprint. Ahead lay half a mile of guava scrub. Beyond that, the bungalow garden. Leaves and twigs and the pale golden globes of the fruit slowly took form as he crashed along but the sun was still a-swim below the horizon and it was yet dark when he hurdled the last bush and emerged upon the lawn where the girl had defied Toruki. He dared not risk a shout. The outer blinds were closed and fastened from within. He rattled the handle of the door des- perately, planning some comparatively quiet way to awaken the inmate. Suddenly he felt the grip of a hand on the inside handle and released his own. The door opened to a chain. “Quick,” he panted, ole s Loudon. Toru- ki’s on the way!” The sergeant stood before him, rifle in hand, dressed save for his coat. He grasped the situation instantly. ““Come hin, sir,” he said. ‘“‘T’ll wake the ladies if youll get the guns out hof the hoffice. Your stuff his hin there. I was sleepin’ there hon a sofa.”’ “Hurry, man,” cried Loudon as he turned into the office. A tiny night-lamp, well shaded, gave him light enough to get the weapons from the wall rack. Two rifles, a shotgun and a re- volver. His own guns stood cased on the floor beside his kit-bag. He closed the door and swiftly made a change from his tattered linen into his suit of stout hunting khaki and filled his pockets with cartridges, loading both his own guns after putting them together. Boxes of other cartridges for the late commissioner’s weapons were on a shelf and he took them down and broke them open. The sergeant opened the door. Outside Comicdook © 5}