Adventure Magazine Cover — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

62 “The battles of the Lord, Mr. Lassiter— I'll have to ask you to talk fast Birdsong fighting amazed Lassiter. - switched him from the main issue. “T’ll walk with you so you won’t lose time. Who were you fighting?” ‘“‘The priests of Bal.” “What for?” “They wanted to take Chacala’s baby. I told ’em they couldn’t because my Master had said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ So we had a little scrimmage. They got Chacala, but I kept his baby and now I’m hurrying back to baptize it before we hitch into ’em regular.” There was something grotesque in this stocky little man hurrying back to baptize a baby before he massed his forces for an attack on the priests of the Sun. The promoter strode along at Birdsong’s. side through the heavy greenhouse smell of the jungle. He was trying to think of some means to stop this coming strife. He had a business man’s hatred of violence. “Why not arbitrate this affair, Birdsong?”’ ‘‘Arbitrate itl” Birdsong gave the pro- moter a sharp glance. “Ves. Is this exactly a Christian act, to be fighting and killing men and setting a whole people by the ears?”’ “Mr. Lassiter,’ drawled the Arkansan, “do you know what old Saint Matthew says in his blessed tenth chapter?” With a sinking heart, Lassiter admitted he was not familiar with the saint’s remarks in his tenth or any other chapter. He also had the uncomfortable-conviction that Mat- thew would bolster up Birdsong in his fire- eating and the fight would proceed. These reflections were interrupted and justified by the colporteur quoting. ‘‘Here’s what he says in his blessed tenth chapter, thirty-fourth and fifth verses, ‘Think not that I have come to send peace It but a sword. For I come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in- law against her mother-in-law. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.?” ~~ The promoter forsook that branch of his argument. “What.I really called to you to stop for,” said Lassiter, “was about upsetting the faith of these old women with matches. ‘mountebank would stoop to He that findeth his: Adventure You tell them their children are dead and in hell, and then strike a match and they believe it. That's a cruel thing to do, Birdsong. It’s a fiendish thing to do. You might just as well have stopped in and murdered Prymoxl’s fourteen children. She’s wild. She’s nearly crazy. She came howling and shrieking— Oh, it was pitiful, Bird- song!” The colporteur straightened belligerently. “Well, her children are dead and in hell!”’ he declared stoutly. Lassiter knew there was no use arguing that point. “Yes, but why tell her?” “So the rest of her children’ll be saved, and her own soul won’t be lost, Mr. Las- siter.”’ He spoke briefly, as though it were a waste of words to argue with such a man. The promoter was irritated. If he con- ceded Birdsong these grounds his logic was as unshakable as Gibraltar. ‘But look here,’’ cut in the agent testily, ‘“‘when these old women don’t believe, you prove you are right by striking a match. Now, that’s a’ of a miracle—striking a match! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, running poor old ignorant women crazy by striking matches!” “Do you say it ain’t a miracle?” de- manded Birdsong grimly. “Certainly it isn’t! Nobody but a 9 “Hold on, Mr. Lassiter, don’t you admit God knows ever’thing?”’ With a certain uneasiness, Lassiter ad- mitted this thesis. “He saw I was going to need a sign and a wonder down here in Motobatl didn’t He? So years before I was born, He in- spired some man to make matches so when I got down here in Motobatl, I might have a sign and a wonder to spread His blessed kingdom. Ain’t that just as much a miracle as me finding you in New York, and finding a rope to climb down the cliffs?” Lassiter was already turning away. What argument could be brought. to bear on a man whose profoundest conviction was that the whole universe and all the ramifications of life that had gone before were but the supers that made ready for his triumphal entrance on the stage of Motobatl! As Lassiter turned away, Birdsong called. “If you don’t believe a match is a miracle, Mr. Lassiter, try making one.” DOOK (©