Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

128 and they two entered last, a dozen paces behind Ommony, Dawa Tsering and the dog; and the moment they entered the echoing arch the door slammed shut at their backs. It was not quite dark; one candle on an iron bracket showed the shadowy outlines of three carriages on the right, and three horses in stalls beyond that. The place seemed clean, with plenty of fresh air, and the stable smell was not overpowering. “Have you been here before?” asked Ommony. “Not I,” said Dawa Tsering. “Maybe it is here he keeps the women! This is one of those places the police dare not look into lest menaccuse them of committing sacrilege. In my next incarnation I will study to be a priest, because then I can laugh at the police instead of being inconvenienced by them!” Diana trotted right and left into the shadows, sniffing, interestéd but not sus- picious. It was she, three or four yards ahead, who presently gave warning of danger in the form of steps descending into absolute obscurity. The candlelight did not penetrate to that point, and it was im- possible to see whether there was a door to conceal the steps when not in use. The voices of three women added to Mai- traya’s complaining of darkness and danger, answered by cavernous rumbling as some one reassured them, proved that the steps did not go very deep, but there was nothing else to judge by until, twenty paces beyond the foot of the steps, the tunnel turned and another solitary candle burning at a corner in the distance showed the long procession shuffling toward it. There were no rats, no dirt, and it was not particularly damp. The tunnel, which was floored and lined with heavy masonry, was roofed in places by the natural rock, but there were spaces beamed with heavy timber and other spaces filled with what looked like fairly modern concrete. The floor and walls seemed very ancient, but the roof had undoubtedly been repaired more than once within the century. The level could not have been more than thirty or forty feet underground, and there was a distinct draft of coo] air passing through. IT WAS not until he came within a dozen paces of the candle that Om- bos mony’s ears, growing accustomed to the echoing shuffle of about two hundred feet, detected that not all that noise came Adventure from in front. He looked back, and saw shadowy, black-draped figures behind the lama and Samding. It was impossible to guess how many, since he looked with the light behind him, into darkness, and when he passed the candle the tunnel turned again rather sharply to the right. He stood still at the corner, looking backward, but the lama boomed to him to go on—- boomed so cheerfully and confidently that it would have been churlish to refuse. ‘Do you suppose those are women be- hind us?” he asked. “T know they are,” said Dawa Tsering. “For a jest, O Gupta Rao, send thy she-dog tothem. There will be a happening!” There was more in that notion than its propounder guessed. Ommony snapped his fingers for attention, and spoke to Diana as loud as he could without letting the lama hear: “Friends! Go and make friends!’ He waved his hand toward the rear. Diana turned and darted past the lama, who tried to intercept her; failing, he made a curt exclamation, whose meaning Om- mony could not catch. ‘“‘What did he say?” he asked. “It means to be silent because they are not afraid,” said Dawa Tsering. And whoever they were, they were not . afraid, which was sufficient cause in itself for much hard thinking. Diana was. as high at the shoulder as a Great Dane; as shaggy and lean and active as a monster from the folk-lore legends. As an appari- tion suddenly emerging out of darkness with her eyes aglare in candlelight, she was enough to have thrown old hunters into panic. But instead there was nothing but laugh- ter, much snapping of fingers and enticing noises made between the lips; and the laughter was as merry and appealing as the sudden view-hallo of children when a circus clown kisses a pig. The lama had to boom a second time for silence, although why he called for silence after that ringing revela- tion was not exactly clear; surely there was no risk, down there in the tunnel, of the noise being heard by the police. And an- other thing: His voice was not alarmed, not even anxious or offended; it more resembled that of an engineer who orders steam turned off, or of a clerk convening court—quite matter of fact, with hardly the suggestion of command in it. 1DOOLK © inn