Adventure Magazine Cover — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

The Dragon’s Claw package. “A little over an hour, I should say. I = o His voice died away in an inarticulate choking that made McNeill, half-way to the door, turn and regard him sharply. Rems- den’s face was blotched, his jaw sagged, his pop-eyes seemed actually starting from their sockets and they were lit with a horror that showed in his mottled, shaking jowls and the trembling hands which were still suspended above the box that he had opened. McNeill crossed to him, picked up the box and shook out the objects it contained on a newspaper that Remsden had been read- ing. A scrap of paper closely covered with _ small, beautifully written Chinese script fluttered after them. Remsden stared, still incapable of action, fascinated by the grisly things before him. These were the half-desiccated lips, ears and eyelids of a man, the black lashes, gummy with dried blood, still clung to the latter. “What—what?” he muttered as McNeill rapidly translated the script. With his eyes, his lips, his ears, he betrayed. Now can Fung-Ti neither see wrong, nor speak falsely nor listen to the voice of the white devil who bribes. “Fung-Ti?’” muttered Remsden and looked up at McNeill who towered over him menacingly, the scrap of paper in his hands quivering. 3 “Do you know what the rest of this says?’ demanded McNeill. “Listen! These are the lips and eyelids and the outer ears of Fung-Ti, the false priest, the thief, the betrayer. Within ten days restore the sacred relic or, what has happened to Fung-Ti, who still lives but prays to the gods he has betrayed that he may die, shall hap- pen to the white woman who returns to the shrine of Hoang Lung as hostage. First did we test Fung-Ti with the ordeal of the Brazen Serpent. ‘Then did we sever the false mem- bers we send to you. It would he hard to tell now that Fung-Ti wasonceaman. Yet he lives. The limbs of the white woman are far more frail than those of Fung-Ti. They will shrink and shrivel in the twist of the Bronze Serpent. Ten days we give you. Return the holy relic, and the girl shall be delivered to the messenger. Fail, and not only shall the girl die many deaths but thou and the man who was with thee shall know the vengeance of the Hoang Lung though ye hide in caverns at the bottom of the sea. See that ye do this secretly. For, if ye appeal to the governments or speak to any that the Shrine of Hoang Lung has been dishonored, in that same hour shall ye all die.” 149 wesegy SO MENACING was the look with Bega which McNeill regarded Remsden that the latter threw up his shaking hands in a semblance of defense. “For the love of God, Neill!’ he whim- pered. “Stop your blasphemy,” said the Irish- man. “Do you know what the Brazen Serpent means, Remsden? They twine copper tubes about your legs and arms and waist and then they fill the tubes with boiling water. That is what they threaten to do to fs He struck the heavy table such a smash with his doubled fist that the panel split and the horrible bits of Fung Ti danced on the paper. “Out with that relic, Remsden! Out with it!’ he demanded. “They have got Helen! Give it to me so I can go after her!” “Ten days, they said—ten days. shrine is only five days’ journey.” McNeill gripped Remsden by the shoul- ders and, heavy as he was, shook him as a terrier would shake a rat. “You would temporize with the girl’s safety?” he cried. “Dll tell you this, Remsden. If one hair of her head has been harmed when I return—and I shall return— I will make you wish you had been Fung-Ti. Where is this relic?” “Wait,” said Remsden, shrinking into his chair on his release but with his face sullen with the piggish obstinacy he could assume. I can not give it to you. I haven’t got it. I can’t get it again before forty-eight hours. There will be plenty of time.”’ ‘‘Remsden, you lied to me before in the cave. You are lying now.” “T did not lie to you. I said that you might search me. I did not have it with me. Helen had it then, though she did not know it. It was in my wallet. I told her it The bothered me in riding, and she carried it.” ~ McNeill’s utter. loathing pierced even Remsden’s armor. “T am not lying now,” he asserted dog- gedly. “I may be able to get it back a little sooner than forty-eight hours. But I haven’t it and that’s the flat truth.” ‘ McNeill, his eyes burning within a few inches of the other’s, told himself that Remsden was telling the truth. “T am going to give you just twenty-four hours to produce it,” he said. “During that time I am going to make preparations that Gomichooks.co