Adventure, August 1917 — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

Dan of the Sword caused the doing of this outrageous thing. Bengowhui shook his head in anger, but stopped sputtering when Colonel Brown started on the rules of evidence again. He listened hopelessly for half a minute, made two feeble attempts to interrupt, and then, dazed but dignified, led his flock of attend- ants off in the midst of the dissertation, without so much as a “beg your par- don.” The things that happened to Bengowhui in the next few days were trivial, but cun- ningly contrived to discommode and irri- tate. It is scarcely necessary to recount them, yet they led to an historical event. Once a growing coconut exploded, shatter- ing Bengowhui’s favorite palm—or so the badly rattled Datto believed until his shield- bearer found a clock wheel imbedded in a bit of the wood. And with each’ fresh mis- hap Bengowhui hastened to Yankee Dan. So six days passed. On the seventh, Ben- gowhui came earlier than usual from his stilt-borne shack half amileaway. Hewas wrangling with a sentry for admission to camp a full hour before reveille, thereby taking his life in his hands, but the sentry conducted him in safety to the sergeant of the guard, who held him at the guard-house as a guest despite frantic protestations, until Colonel Brown had breakfasted. The meeting of Datto and Colonel was a mere meeting of casual acquaintances inso- far as Colonel Brown’s attitude could show. There was nothing calm or casual, however, about the Datto’s bearing. From veiled threats and impassioned demands for Jjus- tice, on pain of complaining to Coldfoot, himself, Bengowhui had grown truculent overnight and openly hostile. He was a-quiver with rage. The accursed dogs of soldiers had burned his barn! Colonel Brown shrugged his brows. “Come with me,’’ he said, and led the way through company streets to the far side of the camp. Bengowhui followed, brimful of rage, but half diverted from his murderous thoughts by wonder. His puzzlement in- creased when Yankee Dan, extending a lean arm dramatically, pointed to a smol- dering, four-square bed of ash in which the fire still breathed. For a brief space there was silence. Then Bengowhui, bristling, demanded angrily: “In the name of Allah, what has that to ue with me?” 65 Yankee Dan turned on him savagely. ‘‘And what in has your dashed barn todo with me? Did I set it afire?”’ ‘““No, but some dog of a soldier did at your direction.”’ “You lie,”? Yankee Dan retorted coldly, his blue eyes boring straight into the flam- ing black of the other man. Now a Moro may lie, and usually does, but it is a mortal affront to tell him so. Besides, Bengowhui was overwrought, his courage unimpaired but his nerves unstrung. Keyed to this pitch the men of his race fre- quently run amuck and, casting aside all thought of consequences, die slaying for the sheer glory and joy of it. Bengowhui’s face grew mask-like, then was contorted with the lust for blood as he whipped a crooked-edged dagger from the folds of a shawl that hung across one shoul- der and dug the ground with his toes in the act of driving the keen blade home. Swiftly as he had moved, however, Colonel Brown was quicker. It was as though a man had stopped a moving body dead in mid-flight. The knife-hand im- prisoned at the wrist sfill held the dagger suspended between the stiffening fingers of the straining man, but the sweat of agony was beginning to appear on the Moro’s brow as Yankee Dan’s hand bore down with all the weight of his sinewy form de- pending from it. e The colonel’s orderly reached for his re- volver in a panic, realizing all at once that they were out of ear-shot of camp and hid- den from it by the commissary shack. Al- ready Bengowhui’s attendants, a half-dozen in number, had followed their master’s lead in producing weapons from unseen parts and were surging forward when Yankee Dan panted— ; “‘Tell them to stand back.” Bengowhui’s knees bent slowly. A groan, wrung from his very soul, it seemed, sprang to his gaping lips as the bones of his right forearm bent almost to the breaking point. The other wrist, too, was fast in a grip that bruised the flesh. “Stand back,” he gasped in the ver- nacular. ““Drop—the—dagger,” panted Yankee Dan, “and we—we': can—resume—our— talk. Perhaps—I—may—overlook this— ifi—your—future conduct—indicates—re- gret.”’ A moment and the dagger dropped point cCoOMmiclsoo CO 5}