Adventure Magazine Cover — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

38 WHEN the promoter awoke, the sun was deep in the west. Weari- ness from his climb and a good dinner had kept him asleep longer than usual. He turned out briskly, with an odd sense of having some sort of engagement. He washed his head and neck in the water and arranged his tie by peering down at his reflection in the jar. He was meticulous with the tie. A little later he set out at a brisk stride toward old Prymoxl’s baobab. When he came in sight of the crone, she was sitting in front of her tree home with a mass of vicuna wool under her arm, spinning it into thread. She worked auto- matically with her eyes fixed in the direc- tion of the declining sun. Lassiter was quite upon her before she observed his coming. Then she turned with a little start out of some reverie. “Ah, primo,” she mumbled, “‘it is you.” ‘“‘Are you alone, sevora?” “Oh, no, primo, I was se watching my nifias go to rest.” “Your ntinas?” “My fourteen.” “T thought they had gone——” ‘“‘They are in the sun, primo.” her eyes on the sunset again. they are signaling to me now with their little hands.” As Lassiter listened, the old woman’s faith translated itself into his sympathy. She was really watching her fourteen chil- dren sink to rest in a world of gold. They were as real to her as his own person stand- ing beside her. He started to ask her how they had died when she continued: “T am an old woman, primo, and my beauty has gone, but I had no heart. Sun- rise and sunset meant nothing to me until my nifias were taken from me.” There came a pause. In his heart, Lassi- ter was surprized and moved at the natural- ness and simplicity of the old crone’s faith. It seemed neither strange nor exotic, but a most natural tenet for so simple a soul. Presently he inquired the way to the arbol de vaca forest. Prymoxl pointed the path toward the lake and returned to her ma- ternal brooding on the. sunset. walked on quickly, and with a certain sense of buoyancy and pleasure that was un- wonted. Within half an hour the American had reached the lake, a considerable expanse of water with three or four reedy islands dot- She fixed “TI know. Lassiter - Adventure ting its surface. Far down the lake one of those reed boats, or bolsas, such as Lassiter had seen on Lake Titicaca, trailed a long golden “‘V” across the purple mirror. In the sunset, the naked torso of the fisherman looked like a little copper figure leaning back and forth at the oars. Toward the extreme east, the lake nar- rowed to a stream and flowed apparently straight into the eastern escarpment of the crater. The whole scene, the lake, the duplica- tion in its depth of the encircling palisades, and the glittering peaks beyond, brought the promoter a keen sense of his own frus- tration. What an ironic end for his expedi- tion—imprisoned by the magnificence he sought! A point of royal palms extended from the forest to the water’s edge some little dis- tance down the beach, and Lassiter strolled toward them, attracted by the nervous beauty of the trees. When he rounded this point, he saw straight on ahead of him, carved in the face of the eastern rampart, the facade of an enormous temple. He stood looking at it quite astounded. It was the teocalla, the temple of the sun, of which Gogoma had spoken. The whole mile-high cliff had been wrought into a vast columniation, crowned by an immense en- tablature. The natural stripe in the crater had been seized on by the architect and carved into a frieze of colossal_proportions. The interior of the cliff evidently had been hollowed by immense labors because the facade was penetrated by circular- rayed windows, thus introducing the sun motif into architecture. Between the vast columns arose a maze of heroic figures, foliage, geometrical designs in high relief. It reminded Lassiter of the triumphal sculpture on the heights of Baghistan in Persia, or the cavern temples of Elephanta in Bombay harbor. However, this was on a mightier scale than those heroic works. Only when Lassiter moved toward the hypogeum did he fully realize its dimen- slons. He was more than a mile distant, yet the vast facade seemed to tower over his head. It arose in the sunset, a golden miracle. As he moved toward it, his utter inability to exploit this wonder in the currents of world travel filled him with gall. It sickened him. Right before his eyes stood the coup of all modern tourist agencies. MICLOOOK (C@