Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

Om “T will obey thee, Gupta Rao, until the luck changes,” he said at last. ‘‘My dice are loaded, yet even so I can not win! Luck is funny stuff.” It was about ten minutes after dawn, the choicest hour in India, alive with cock- crow and the color-drenched solemnity of waking day, when the tired elephant came to a final halt in some sort of an enclosure and shuffled a slow measure to call the mahout’s attention to sore feet. At a sharp word of command the beast lay down, like a hillside falling. Diana sprang out through the curtains and Ommony followed, yawning and sitting down on the clephant’s forefoot to pretend to watch the mahout’s ingenious ministrations to a corn, while he surveyed the scene from under Jowered eyelids. : The other elephants, already offloaded, had shuffied away to a roofed enclosure at the far end of a compound, where great heaps of food awaited them and equally huge vats of water. The camels, still bur- dened, were lying down in picturesque con- fusion, carrying on a came] conversation, which consists in snarling at the world in general. Along one side of the compound was a row of mules, tied by the heel with their rumps toward the wall, squealing for breakfast, which was being brought by naked boys and by a Ddhisti, who poured water into buckets from a goatskin bag. The opposite side of the compound was formed by a low, two-storied building with « double-decked veranda supported on square wooden posts running the entire Jength. There were flies, much litter, and # most amazing smell. Over the roof of the building, where a Jong line of crows formed a mischievously interested audience, there appeared a jumble of other roofs that made no pretense to architecture. One wall of the compound appeared to face open country, but the other two formed the flanks of nonde- script, flat-roofed dwellings, beyond which trees and more roofs appeared. Small- town noises, such as a smithy bellows and the hammer-ring on iron, the patter of goats’ feet and the heavier tread of cattle being driven forth to graze, arose on all sides. ‘There was one minaret in sight, and one Hindu temple-roof ornate with carvings of deific passion. The compound gate was locked, and there was a guard of two men standing by, not evidently armed, but 133 obviously sullen and alert. There was no sign of the lama, nor of any women. After a minute or two Maitraya looked out from a door midway under the long balcony and greeted Ommony with the familiarity of boon companionship estab- lished by journeying together. It needs only one night of shared discomfort on the road to produce that feeling, or else its opposite. One either hates or likes one’s fellow traveler; there is no middle ground on the dawn of the second day out. “Do you know where we are?” Maitraya asked cheerfully. Ommony did not know, but he was no such fool as to admit it; and to have asked such a simple question before that crowd of mahouts, camelmen, saises, bhistis and bag- gagemen would have been beneath a Bhat’s dignity. In his capacity of wiseacre he gave the mahout good advice regarding elephants’ corns, about which he knew nothing; in his réle of privileged extortioner he demanded arrack from a man who seemed to be the master of the stables, and estab- lished friendship with the elephant by giving the grateful beast two-thirds of a bottleful of the atrocious stuff. In his guise of actor of uncommon parts he swag- gered, stretching his legs toward Maitraya and demanded to know where breakfast might be. But Maitraya did not know that either. Meanwhile Diana was exploring on her own account, alarming many mules, offend- ing camels and reducing elephants to a state of old-maidish nervousness, at which their mahouts yelled in chorus, offering to throw sticks, dung and missiles of all sorts, but daring no more than.the threat. Di- ana, solemnly indifferent to abuse, and con- temptuous of elephants since she had ridden on the back of one, snooted around in corners until she reached the end door under the balcony; and, finding that open, she entered. There was an instant chorus of women’s voices. Maitraya grinned. “Gupta Rao,” he said, “I have seen many curiosities in my day, but those dancing girls surpass all! They are not Hindus, that I swear. They are not Moslems. And they wear no veils. If they are Tibetans, Krishna! I will risk my life and go to Tibet! “Vou should have seen them, Gupta Rao! J saw them descend from the ele- phants; and Vishnu! Vishnu! I assure you cComicbooks.c© Al