Adventure Magazine Cover — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

80 that the scent of Tilita’s body had clung to his clothes. It annoyed Lassiter sharply. A vision of the girl asleep in the hammock passed before his eyes. He shook his shoulders sharply, got up, walked over to the air shaft and looked out. The shaft gave on a circle of saffron western sky. The promoter stood breathing at the intake, thinking he should have changed his clothing. His hardly suppressed thoughts began breaking in on his brain. He could see her asleep in the hammock. On his fingers he could feel the warmth where her hands had clung. It seemed that he had, at that moment, stepped away from her side. He let his curbed imagination go. He wondered wistfully if she were still asleep; and what would she do when she awoke? Go back to the baobab? Back to old Prymoxl and the empty wedding feast? Nhat a raw, lonely vigil the night would bring her! And had Birdsong lived, what rapture they would have known! This very sunset that sent a splotch of crimson light down the air-shaft would have drawn cur- tains about their wedding couch! A pulse began throbbing in his neck. He could feel a faint warm line along the closure of his lips. Blood murmured in his ear. In the vast stillness of the cliff, he could hear the functioning of his heart. Its systole and diastole formed a gurgling that sounded almost like an external voice. He imagined it said his own name over and over— ‘“‘Sefior Lassiter! Sefior Lassiter! Lassiter!” It might have been Tilita’s voice repeat- ing the watery syllables interminably. Senior As the man sat listening, the faint calling seemed to detach itself from the murmur in his ears. It seemed to come from the corridor. It was distinctly from the corri- dor, far down toward the south, in the oppo- site direction from the entrance. That any person should be whispering “his name in this distant wing of the hypo- geum amazed Lassiter. the passageway. He could not see beyond fifteen or twenty doors owing to the curve of the passage. But the whispering of his name came closer and closer. It sounded as if some spectral voice were moving through solid stone from cell to cell calling him. It was impossible to say whether it was man’s or woman’s. Now it was only a few doors above him. The He went out into. Adventure corridor remained empty. The voice passed into an adjoining cell. Suddenly it was in his own cell. The promoter wheeled back inside. “What is it?’ he asked of emptiness. Then he saw that his air-shaft was darkened. He stepped to his shaft, looked through and saw the Colombian’ s face at the other end. The man’s eyes were staring. “By the Holy Virgin!” gasped the fel- low. “T thought I’d never find you—the girl, Tilita—you’re a priest—perhaps you can—” Balthasar’s excitement communicated it- self to the neophyte: ‘“What is it?” he asked sharply. ‘“What’s happened to her? Answer me, man!’ A sudden premonition roughened his skin. The Colombian suddenly lifted his voice to a whispered wail: “Oh, Mother of God! She’s in the net! Jumped in! Run! Mio Dios, senor, run!” Lassiter whirled. As he rushed out of his cell, he still heard that wailing whisper pur- suing him: “Run! Run! Oh, Holy Mary!” Quiz-Quiz was at the door. Two or three priests were flying northward down the corridor that led toward the main temple. Lassiter shouted at the hunchback to open the door. The crooked little man began pointing and screaming for Lassiter to run with the other priests—to grease his feet. The promoter stormed the door through which he had entered. He flung his weight against the bolts. They clashed back. The portal inched open. Quiz-Quiz clamored a warning as Lassiter shot through the opening. Furnace heat and a blare of golden light smote the troglodyte as he leaped out of the cavern. Nunes was waiting in a quiver at the entrance. At sight of Lassiter he whirled and bolted across the wide pave- ment. He began explaining in staccato: “Mother of God! Quiz-Quiz wouldn’t let me in! I had to shout in a thousand windows! She must be swallowed up— gone “ He tore along through the heat. The promoter panted after him. A hot breeze beat against the American’s face; his heart pounded. The piazza was so huge his feet seemed to patter up and down in one place. Nunes gradually crept up on him. By the time they reached the bolsa at the edge of the piazza, the muleteer was abreast. He drew out his automatic and NOOK C©