Adventure Magazine Cover — page 125: what you’re looking at

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

Go-Fever Another blast sounded from the crags where they were splitting the treasure rock open. Morbora groaned slightly. ‘What are we goin’ to do with him?” asked Reynolds. ‘‘Dango’s dead, by the way he lies and this one ought to be,” he added vindictively, picking up a nolla- nolla and handling it. “Might as well make one job of it and bury both of them at once. They won’t be pleasant toward evening.” “T don’t know,” said Cole. “I’ve killed men on the other side who were trying to kill me and I haven’t worried about them. We can’t trust Morbora but I’m hanged if I want to butcher him.” “‘They’ll stir up the tribe against us—at least Morbora will—if we let him go. They'll either come out after us or more likely ambush us. It’s up to you, Cole. You cracked him.” ‘Cole walked over to Morbora, beside whom Perro sat growling as the black stirred and moaned. ‘They were in serious jeopardy as it was. To let him go trebled the hazards of their case. Tokillan enemy, in cold blood, even a savage maneater and murderer, went against his grain. It was not the code of the white man. ‘We'll tie him up,” he said finally. ‘Let the dog watch him. When we go we'll take him along and turn him loose when we’re down the river.”’ “You'll be sorry for it,’ said Reynolds shortly. “T’ll be sorry if I don’t doit, Tom. If it’s up to me?” Reynolds shrugged his shoulders and turned away. His wounds were smarting; there was no way of cleansing them; later in the day they would become almost unendurable. He was in no mood to turn up his thumb for mercy. Dango was dead. There was no doubt as to that. Reynolds made one suggestion when Cole announced the fact. *““Make the other bury him.” Within five minutes Morbora was sitting up stupidly, eyeing his conquerors furtively and fearfully. Reynolds ordered him to dig the grave in the sand and gave him a nolla- molla for the purpose, standing over him with another while Perro snarled and kept close to the black’s calves. Morbora showed no sign of any feeling as he plied his grim task, rolled in the corpse of his companion and covered it over. That 123 ended, with the blasts at the lava crags sounding like funeral guns, they tied the black with his hands clasped below his knees and the bonds about wrists and ankles connected, setting him in the rapidly dimin- ishing shade of a neighboring spinifex clump. The morning would have been an endur- ance test for the strongest. Petrie wilted slowly like a plant drooping in the heat. He lay motionless with the others on either side of him, keeping the ants away as best they could with brushes made from the grass blades, giving him water sip by sip till his throat refused the muggy liquid. They spoke very seldom, even the effort to open their lips seemed a tax on waning energies in that furnace where the wind ceased, the spiny blades stood stiff and the ants marched, marched m endless, persistent columns. The blasting ceased long before noon. From time to time they heard shouts but, as the sun mounted, even the lure of gold appeared to lose its power. They could fancy the marauders in the cool caves and their envy stiffened their resentment and their fortitude. Petrie was racked with griping pains and he lay supine between their weakening conclusions, beginning to lose blood, to drift toward coma. From time to time, as Cole glanced toward him, the ex-sergeant gripped a war-club until his knuckles showed white against the brown skin. The cholera mixture, if that could check the in- sidious ravages of the dysentery, was in the cave. If he had thought he had the remotest chance of getting it he would have risked his own life cheerfully, but it was impossible to believe that they would let him get with- in talking distance, certain that they would jeer at his plea for the sick man, probably kill all three of them. On the Adventurer they had all three suffered together, save in the case of Reynclds’ temporary seasickness, but here he watched his comrade drifting slowly out on a low tide of mortality that could be checked surely, before the ebb became too great. if they only had the means. Rey- nolds caught his glance, interpreted it. “Tf he dies, we’ll even matters,”’ was the return message in the eyes of the Anzac, and Cole nodded understanding and agree- ment. They were in none too good shape them- selves, but they forgot their own sickness, CGO NOOK C©