Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

The Fetish Stick *‘T also have seen Bonsei put his hand to his face when he speaks to my Lord Sandi and to Militini, and a soldier of Sandi’s told me that he does this thing to do honor to Militini and to Sandi, who are his chiefs. Now, tell us, Buluta, what may we do?” Buluta raised his hands, he was almost incoherent in his excitement. ‘We will make a dance and a devil palaver, such a palaver as never was seen in this land, and we ourselves will put up a great stick so that we may talk with ghosts, for the son of my sister has stolen a won- derful cloth such as Tibbetti hangs, and this is sutely a great magic and a charm for sickness. And since we shall be as great as Sandi he shall not harm us if through our medicine men die. Also be- cause he beat me, I will lay a spell upon him and he will go mad. Wa!” For six days there were mysterious doings on the Island of Bats, fifty separate fires burned and smoked and the awe- stricken villagers on the mainland watched this evidence of the witch-doctor’s activity with their knuckles to their teeth. There was sacrificing of goats and chickens and a score of snakes died in the course of twenty different rituals. There was a pounding and a mixing, a dancing and a chanting beyond all precedent, and when a week and three days had gone by Buluta and five delegates launched their canoe and struck down the river to the forest of tall trees to choose ‘“The Stick” and annoint their find with proper ceremony. err NEWS of a gathering of witch- ngeeaa Cloctors reached Sanders and the a commissioner acted quickly. Bones was torn from his tangled halyards and his chaotic signal locker and dispatched, he protesting, in search of proofs. Near the Forest of Happy Dreams the river broadens until it forms a great lake, where, on hazy days, it is almost impossible to see from shore to shore. Steersmen loathe this breadth of water because sand- banks grow in a night and islands that you chart on your way up give way to five fathoms of water on your way down-stream. There are places in this lake where a steamer can bump her way into deep water and find herself within a sandy circle from whence there is no escape. On such occasions all the crew descend into the water 83 é and literally lift the steamer from her em- barrassing position. On a hot day in July a little steamer specklessly white, her tall twin funnels belching a constant billow of black smoke, picked an erratic way through the lake. Two sounding boys sat in her bows and stabbed the water at intervals of a few seconds with long rods, transmitting the depth in tones of abysmal weariness. Bones, standing on the bridge of the Zaire with a telescope under his arm and a very severe and disapproving frown upon his forehead watched the maneuver of the Government ship with every indication of impatience. “Oh, Yoka,” he said at last, turning’ to the steersman, “‘is there no straight course, for when I brought the Zaire through this broad river I turned neither to the left nor to the right?” “Lord,” said the Kano boy who steered, not taking his eyes from the waters ahead, “who knows this river—every day the water finds a new way?” Bones turned to a weary “Tut!” and his thoughts went back longingly to a cool beach and a high white flagstaff. Presently he spoke again in Arabic. “Now my great eyes can see the course,” he said, “you shall go to the middle waters.” “Master,” said Yoka earnestly, “I think there is sand in the middle waters.” “It is an order,” said the imperious Bones. The wheel spun ’round under the helms- man’s hand and the nose of the Zaire pushed ’round. They struck the strong river current. The black waters piled themselves up before the bows. “Exactly,’”’ said Bones complacently, “TI thought we should do it.” Suddenly the speed of the vessel per- ceptibly stopped and Yoka, who knew that this meant that she was reaching shallow water, spun the wheel with feverish haste. There was a shivering bump, another and a whole series of frantic little hops, and though the stern-wheel thrashed furiously the Zaire went neither forward nor back- ward. “Master,” said Yoka simply, “this is a sandbank.”’ Bones said nothing. He took his big pipe from his pocket, deliberately loaded it with tobacco, struck a match and lit it COnnICLOoO So(GO)