Adventure Magazine Cover — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

The Web of the Sun He fancied himself marrying Tilita in the vast baroque temple of the sun. He could see himself kneeling with her before a golden altar. Above them stood the vast naked Gogoma, dripping with sweat—and annointing with perfume—the beat of bar- baric music—then their return to one of these vast trees—the slow luxury of day and night—the springing up of children about them—many children, such as old Prymoxl bore, and of whom, only one remained. ; But theirs would not fade. They would be gay, laughing, half arboreal little cherubs and they, in their turn, would come and kneel in the temple of the sun—and so life would go on. The flare of color suggested by this vision shivered through the poet. He arose briskly, shook off his absurd reverie and dressed himself, for it was now plain day. The thought of Prymoxl’s children some- how suggested the web of the sun. In the more rational daylight, the promoter made a shrewd guess as to the function of the net. It was merely a priestly device for collecting tithes and meats for the sacerdotal table. The mysterious disappearance of the lamb, which had given him a turn the pre- ceding evening, no doubt was nothing more than some priestly hocus-pocus. He de- cided that he would walk down and look more closely into the mechanism of the contrivance. The promoter set out lakeward and after some thirty minutes’ brisk walking reached the lake and the stony inlet where the net was stretched. The agent clambered down the stones for a more detailed inspection of the hammock. It was an ingeniously made contrivance. The whorl of limed cords in the center were a marvelous mechanism. Each strand was made of two hollow tubes twisted together and filled with a viscous limy material. This limy liquid oozed out through the col- loidal tubes and constantly renewed their sticky surfaces. Instead of drying in the hot sunshine, the net grew stickier and stickier. Lassiter took a bamboo from a bit of jetsam at the edge of the lake, then went back and touched it to this viscid center. When he tried to pull it away the strands untwisted and resisted his pull with the flexibility of limed rubber. If a captive 43 drew out one foot, it would surely thrust the other into a deeper viscosity. It was such a powerful and devilish gin that Lassiter’s surprize expanded to wonder- ment. This was far too much craft to ex- pend on a meré priestly device for gathering alms. It held sinister implications. The priests of the sun would not con- struct a club to kill a midge. This net was far beyond the strength of a vicuna lamb, or a vicuna—the thing would have held a tiger. Such preparations suggested a far grimmer purpose than holding a lamb for Gogoma’s table. The promoter stepped gingerly on the first transverse cord, and then from cord to cord toward the limed center. He stood, balancing himself, speculating on the thing. No doubt the hot climate developed this contrivance. Meat for the temple must be kept alive or it would spoil. So this ex- traordinary fabrication had been evolved by necessity, that fecund mother of all in- ventions. The same ingenuity turned to- ward aviation would have flown over the encircling cliffs to freedom! The water over which the net was sus- pended was a profound blue and appeared of great depth. It was full of shadows and half forms. Amid the refléctions of rocks and palms and distant palisades, he saw the slow sway of undergrowth; then pres- ently made out a sort of pale blob that protruded from some subaqueous cavern. He shaded his eyes with his hands and peered down. It was confused with the reflection of a solitary cloud. At last he decided he would » thrust his bamboo down and punch the thing. It might be the clew to the whole contrivance. He was addressing his pole for this purpose when a voice on the bank called to him sharply to desist. 7 and he saw a tall raw-boned brown man with the priestly heron feather in his hair. Besides, he was armed with a long pole with an obsidian blade on it, something like an elongated scythe. Coiled around his arm was a great loop of the col- loidal rope used in the net. The fellow looked as if he might have been sent down from the temple to mow down the trespasser on the net, so Lassiter got ashore and asked what was the matter. “It is dangerous there, sefor.”’ SURPRIZE ‘brought Lassiter up, DOOK C@