Adventure Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

The Web of the Sun every riddle by a fiat straight out of the blue. If the priests knew, they retained their knowledge; and as for old Prymoxl and other ordinary Indians, they were in as hopeless a welter of theological explanation as Birdsong. _ And Lassiter’s own brain had come to a complete balk; yet he had a profound feeling that it was because he had no human con- tact by which he could orientate himself. He felt, in his heart, if he had just an ordinary man-on-the-street, picked up off of Broadway, a man who would think straight, whose brain did not skid at once into absurdities—he would solve it. Moreover the solution must be hovering almost in sight. One isolated conundrum may prove insoluble, but half a dozen, all focusing on the same point, are mutually explanatory and suggestive. He was amazed; he was chagrined that the web of the sun lay under his eyes as inscrutable as the first time he ever saw it. GH@O PRESENTLY into the promoter’s ¢ ap) self disgust crept the murmur of SA distant voices. They were just audible and for several minutes did not interrupt Lassiter’s brooding. Indeed, this slight human touch somehow helped the agent to his first tenable theory. It was exceedingly simple. An underground tun- nel led from temple to net. The priests had watched him from the window and had timed the thrusting out of the vicufia under his eyes to help mystify him. It was the simplest of ruses; worthy of an intelligence such as Jagala’s. Then he attacked the problem of the peculiar condition of the lamb, but just here the voices he had heard became so loud as to distract his thought. It was a man and a woman quarreling. He became attentive and could distinguish the edged tilts of a woman’s soprano, and the peculiar monotonous buzzing of a man’s baritone which mark the sexes in anger. He looked over the crest of the little knoll and presently saw two figures emerge from the palms coming toward the beach. The woman carried a calabash. Both were gesticulating angrily. Their voices reared at each other. Suddenly the man seized her free hand. The woman screamed, tried to wrench loose, when her companion caught her in his arms and began one of those dodging struggles 45 to kiss her. She dropped the calabash, clawed at his face and twisted her head from side to side to escape his lips. Had Lassiter been a younger man, he would have rushed to the assistance of assaulted beauty, but he was wise. He watched the love fight with the amused toler- ance of a bachelor of thirty-nine. The grand passion often takes the form of blows and resisted kisses. The result of these hos- tilities would be another tree commandeered for housekeeping in Motobatl— At that instant Lassiter saw the girl was Tilita. The promoter leaped to his feet with a kind of spasm in his chest. Next instant he -was in full charge down the slope and up the sand. The glare of the sun went red. The man’s back was to him, but Tilita saw him and screamed— “Primo!” Next moment the fellow whirled. For an instant, Lassiter saw Balthasar staring at him with bloodless face. The Colombian made a grab for his pistol. Tilita’s arms prevented. Lassiter jumped in with a furi- ous swing at the brown man’s chin. - Nunes yelled and dodged. Next moment the two “men went down on the sand together. The promoter fell on top, but his attack was ineffective from its very fury. He grabbed the Colombian’s ears and jounced his head against the ground. He loosed a hand to seize the wretch’s mustache and yank his mouth into monstrous shapes. He mauled at the eyes, trying to smash the yellow countenance. The muleteer used only one hand for defense; with the other he grappled under his hip for his automatic. He wriggled and pitched and sputtered Spanish oaths. He almost threw Lassiter over his head by heaving up his stomach, but the promoter lunging and lurching, pounded the saddle- colored face with every blow raising a splotch. It was a mere spurt of fighting, but Las- | siter tired as swiftly as he fought. He was soft to the core. In two minutes his head was roaring and his mouth so full of slime he could hardly breathe. He seemed in a furnace. Sweat ceased to flow on him. He was burning up. Suddenly he saw Balthasar was drawing his automatic. He grabbed the muleteer’s elbow. During the pause, Nunes caught Lassiter’s right. They came to a straining impasse. The promoter stared into NOOK C@