Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

A Tropic Idyl the sweet-tasting breeze. All nature was his beloved, and he saw her each moment, in new guise. She sat beside him and ran her soft fingers through his hair. She sang to him, and her voice was the murmur of leaves and the trills of song-birds. She laughed at him, and with him. She was everywhere, and for no two moments was she the same. Now she was a demure and winsome lass in a starched white frock, which rustled as she moved and suggested a sane, ordered ex- istence amid houses and streets; abruptly she changed to an alluring, mysterious woman, enveloped in vaporous draperies through which her white form shone dimly, who flitted about beneath the trees, disappear- ing, reappearing, beckoning him to arise and follow her. Once she came and _ leaned over him so close he might have met her lips with his had he possessed the power to lift his head a little. As she changed form, so did she change color. One moment her hair was golden, and, as she ran, streamed behind her like a bright torch; the next moment it was a thick black mop, which stood out from her head for a foot or more. Her eyes were blue and frank; but even as he looked into them they changed to deepest black, and their candor was replaced by an enigmatical, questioning expression he found most dis- turbing. Her white skin became before his eyes a brown skin, a brown that glistened like golden velvet in the sunlight. Her ghostly draperies became a green sarong. Mazie merged into Marua. The transformation was so complete and so- surprizing that Bruce mastered the strange sloth which held his body, and hoisted himself on an elbow, the better to observe the woman. There was still a sane cell functioning in the back of his mind, and he realized dimly that some unhealthi- ness flooded his veins and dizzied his brain and tricked his eyes with illusions. But Marua seemed no fantasy. She stood so close he might almost touch her with his hand, and he could see her bosom rise and fall as she breathed. Yet she could not be flesh and blood, for Mazie was inside of her! It was very interesting and amusing, and Bruce smiled. It seemed this smile was what Marua awaited. She laughed joyously in rejoinder and danced away from him. Bruce saw she had a garland of crimson hibiscus entwined 89 in her hair, its long ends trailing behind her as she moved. At the farther end of the glade she paused, and smiling, looked at him. She stood be-- fore one of the little roofed pavilions the bower-birds so cunningly builded and gaily decorated for their mating dances; it seemed she stood there purposely, for she drew his attention to the birds’ love-bower with a gesture. When she saw he under- stood she commenced to dance. Up and down the glade she moved, leap- ing, strutting, posturing, swaying, preen- ing ‘her imaginary feathers and spreading them to the sun, dancing in rhythm, at- tuned to some wild jungle music she alone could hear. She passed to and fro before the recumbent man, advancing, retreating, each movement of her supple form a picture of savage, sinuous grace. ‘The wonted gravity was gone from her face; she laughed and her eyes were glad. Watching that mad dance, Bruce was in- fected by it. It got beneath his skin, his pulse throbbed to the measure, and his languor was routed. He sought to arise and join in the dance. He did get to his feet, but at his first step shooting lights ap- peared before his eyes and blinded him, and he stumbled and fell. When he looked up from the ground Marua had stopped her dance and was looking at him with a concerned face. Also, Stort was there, standing behind Marua, regarding her with an enraged glare and menacing her with a barbed stick of lawyer-cane. Stort spoke to the girl, or else she sensed his presence, for she glanced behind her, startled; and seeing her master, she cried out in alarm and terror and shrank away before him. Then Stort leaped upon her and beat her upon the bare shoulders with the cruel staff. Ss ap? IT WAS the brutality of the assault pepe: that eve strength to Bruce’s body LS and singleness of purpose to his addled wits. Stort’s face was a fiendish mask, and Marua’s flesh was torn and bleed- ing from the spikes of the weapon Stort wielded; his cries were screamed curses; hers, of pain and fright. Bruce was mad- dened by the sight and the sounds. It was not only Marua who was being beaten; Mazie, as well, received the blows— for had not the two become one before his Ghoo \ ) CO (©