Adventure Magazine Cover — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

said Afzel’s Elephant saw us he bounded up into the rocks. But Shirzad Mir fired an arrow swiftly. My lord was an excellent shot. From the body we took the message. | It said that Said Afzel would camp that night at a certain level spot in the pass, for the caravan track was too narrow, besides being on the bank of the turbulent stream Amu Daria, to travel at night. Probably Said Afzel liked better to sit on the cushions of a silk tent than to ride. “God is good to us,” exclaimed Shirzad Mir and pressed forward. Although I still said nothing, I had a great foreboding. No man has ever called me a coward, but our strength was sapped by hunger—we had no armor or firearms. We were acting on the mad whim of the Ferang, and for the first time in his life my master had put aside my advice for another’s— that of the merchant who made me carry the pot of swine-flesh. We passed the open place where Said Afzel had planned to camp. We knew now that the caravan could not be far away, and Shirzad Mir sent the boy ahead to spy. He ran swiftly, like a young mountain goat. We came to the very place where I had first met the Ferang, and I bent my ears back like a horse, listening for hoofs on the trail behind us, for here we were in a trap. On one side the cliff rose sheer for perhaps four spear lengths. On the left hand the slope, steep and strewn with rocks and thorns, dropped abruptly to the rushing stream which was deep enough to drown a man. Truly, I thought, the madness of Sir Weyand had brought us to an evil place. If a patrol of Uzbek horsemen should come behind us we would be caught between them and the caravan. Even a brave man feels a prickling of the flesh when he knows not what is before and behind him. The mad fantasy of the other two had veiled their minds from danger. - Shirzad Mir, to make matters worse, set Sir Weyand and me to rolling some stones into the path from the slope. While we were doing this he dismounted and led our three horses by a roundabout path up to the top of the cliff. Not until we had the stone heap nearly the height of a man and were panting from the toil—my bruises had not yet healed— did he call for us to cease. Then Sir Weyand made me take the pole with him 73 and carry it up the slope to the top of the cliff. If the foul fat had fallen back on me, I should have struck him, but it was my fate that it did not. Back into a cedar grove we carried the accursed thing. Here Shirzad Mir had kindled a fire from dried cedar branches. “The trees may hide the smoke,” he said. “Quick—our time is little!”’ As if possessed of a demon, Sir Weyand worked at the fire, placing the cauldron over the logs so that the fat began to heat. Meanwhile, Shirzad Mir stood at the edge of the cliff to watch for the coming of the boy. The sun had dropped behind the peaks at our backs. There wasno wind. The scent of the cedars was sweet in my nostrils, but Sir Weyand made me labor over the evil- smelling pot. I had none of his wild hope. For, without doubt, Said Afzel, whom we sought, would ride the elephant, and I had once tried to attack one of the beasts in a battle. The ravine in which the stream muttered was clothed in shadows and it must have been the time of sunset prayers when the boy came running back up the path, looking for us. Shirzad Mir called to him, and the youth came nimbly up the cliff, clinging somehow to the sheer rock, until my lord reached him a hand. Then he bowed his head to Shirzad Mir’s feet. “The caravan comes, Lord of Badakshan!” he cried eloquently. ‘“‘How many and in what order?” asked Shirzad Mir swiftly. “Some horsemen, riding slowly, are in front. Then a group of slaves with burdens on foot. Following them some armed riders. Then a black elephant with a glittering howdah.”’ “God is with us!” cried Shirzad Mir. He turned to me merrily. “Ho—Abdul Dost of the dark brow! What think you of an elephant in the ravine of Shyr?” We had seen none of the beasts in Badakshan before, but something of Shirzad Mir’s purpose flashed on me, and I felt the heart-leap of the hunter when he sees game approach his hiding-place. Sir Weyand stirred the fat, which was now boiling and bubbling odorously. Above the place where we had piled the stones so they would look as if they had fallen down the slope, my lord sent the boy comichooks.co