Adventure Magazine Cover — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

70 - “What if it is!” cried Lassiter in horror. “You are in charge of Motobatl now. You’ve won!” “* “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,’ Brother Lassiter.”’ “But, man!” cried the promoter aroused. “T tell you it’s horrible! You should have seen Chacala. He was a shell, a crust. I fished him out, of the whirlpool—”’ The New Yorker shivered. ‘‘Make ’em shoot the poor devil with his own automatic, Bird- song.” _ The colporteur tramped on with the thick skin of his brow corrugated ‘into three wrin- kles. It was the cool of the morning, but sweat beaded his face. ‘Brother Lassiter,’ he said at last, ‘‘this is the worst stump I ever plowed into—I don’t know what to do— ‘The Good Book says that David was the same kind of a man » that Brother Nunes is—Uriah’s- wife—and David was a man after God’s own heart— Aye me, Brother Lassiter—I dunno what to do—” He crooked his forefinger and flung the water from his forehead with a plowman’s gesture. The marching men rounded the point of palms and came into sight of the huge facade of the temple. Over the line ran a breathing, an audible tribute to the wonder and hugeness of that facade wrung even from an apostate army. They were in sight, also, of the cumulus which hid the sinister net of the sun. Lassiter looked at it with dry lips. He could feel the muscles of his legs as dis- tinctly as if he himself were to be thrown onto its limed and twisted ropes. He made one last mental effort to fathom the secret of the contrivance, and for the last time, failed. The muleteer strode ahead in his soiled green jacket, and all that Lassiter knew of that gay, irresponsible roué revisited his mind. He thought of the piquante girls in Quito, of the Indiari girls along the trail, of the fact that he, Lassiter, had persuaded Nunes to come down into the crater, of how Nunes had helped carry him down the preci- pice, and of how they had fought over Tilita. And as he stared at the condemned man, Lassiter realized that something in his heart had wrapped itself around this capering irrepressible animal. He could hear the fool sayin “Senorita, when I look at you, I have Adventure a yearning, a wild, uncontrollable——” Poor devil, perhaps he had! J AT THE foot of the hummock the guards halted their prisoner. The =< army filed past and took up a semi- circle around the executioners and the con- demned. Lassiter glanced at the great piazza. It was deserted save for a shape- less brown form in the great entrance. It was Gogoma waiting for Birdsong’s men to come and slay him. Nunes mounted to the top of the hillock and struck a fine pose against the sky. His eyes barely rested on the net, then swept over lake and palisades to the peaks be- yond. Lassiter thought again how he had persuaded the Colombian to comé down into the crater. | “Seniors,” said the captive to the archers, ‘if you will permit it, I would like to jump into the net myself with free hands. It is for the sake of the seforas. I have friends—” he made a graceful gesture toward them—‘‘who would prefer to see me go a freeman——”’ Birdsong walked up the little acclivity and stood beside the muleteer. The way he laid his hand on Nunes’ shoulder made Lassiter realize there was a bond between the muleteer and the son of the moonshiner that he had never suspected. He was much the same size and build as Balthasar. Las- siter thought he was going to cut the rope. Instead, Birdsong said very simply: “Soldiers of God, this brother ain’t ready to die. I know it is the law in Motobatl for adulterers to be thrown into the net, so I’m going in Brother Nunes’ place.” A gasp of horror, a breaking out of pro- test along the ranks. Men left the line and came running in with dissuasions. The colporteur waved them all down. “T tell you!” he cried in his nasal voice, “Brother Nunes ain’t ready to appear before his God! He'll go to hell shore, forever and ever! He saved my life twicet. He stood ‘by me when every man-jack left me——” A woman wailed. “But Gogoma will kill our nzfas!” ‘“‘No, he won’t sister. Our men have won. If I am necessary for the salvation of Moto- batl, you know God ain’t going to let noth- ing happen to me in that net!” “But, sefor, nobody ever has caped——” ‘And nobody ever come out of a lion’s den es- MICLOOOK (C©@