Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

152 eyes shifting constantly, his feet scuffling in the red dust of the veld. Maila is old and——”’ “Mzila lies, or forgets, you would say?” The pressure of Macombe’s hand was a torture. ‘“‘Mzila lies? To what end? Maila forgets? Au-a! Mzzila, who can re- member all the years, and the happenings of those years, back to the day when my father’s father was born; aye, and before that! Au-a! Be not a fool as well as a liar! “And so, when I spoke of these things _to the white men who dress as great war- riors, they acted as great warriors should. They washed their hands of you—O dirty one who has never washed—they denied that you were their mouthpiece; they told their black dogs to inspan and drove hur- riedly away. It may be,”’ he added witha chuckle—“‘that they feared somewhat the assegais of my warriors—they are very sharp and always thirsty for the blood of lars.” He looked at Umglubu with amused toler- ance; laughed aloud when the little man tried to squirm out of his grasp; laughed again when the white man, his face livid with fear, shook his fist and screamed; gasped at the curses and blasphemies which tumbled from the white man’s lips in a garbled torrent of words—at first the words had no meaning to Macombe but present- ly—the full portent of the desertion coming home to him—the white man forgot the tongue to which he was born and cursed solely in the language of the country. “Peace, little one,’”? Macombe said mildly. “You have cause only to rejoice. I have put my mark to the ‘talking paper’ which I leave in your hands. You still live—and I have not ordered my warriors to kill you. Instead—see how merciful I am—tI give you into the safe keeping of your wives. They still have a great regard for you. Their huts have been empty since the com- ing of those white warriors. They have mourned your absence and wait eagerly for your return to them. “Go to them—and go quickly!” He pushed the white man from him with such force that Umglubu fell headlong to the ground. A moment he lay there, whim- pering. Then, rising slowly to his feet he gazed helplessly about him until, seeing four women advancing ponderously toward him, he fled howling along the trail taken Adventure by the wagons, the women close at his heels. He did not get far. Soon they caught up with him. He struggled deperately for a little while and then, beaten, thoroughly cowed, he stood meekly in their midst while they upbraided him in loud, scolding voices. “Guard him well, you black heifers,” Macombe shouted. “We will, O Earthshaker,” one of them shouted. She was enormously fat; fat cov- ered and hid her figure as much as if it were a huge, misshapen garment. She was the head wife of Umglubu, the Pig—some- time called Ferdinand de Sousa—and in the lobe of her ear, taking the place of the brass cartridge case which usually adorned it, -was the parchment to which Macombe and his counsellors had set their marks. The red ribbon with which the roll was tied dangled coquettishly down to her shoulders. “YOU wished to see me?” ‘Don Paulos D’Andra—son of a that D’Andra who twenty years MA ago had tried to win a concession from Macombe—looked up with a petulant frown from the papers he was examining so closely, wiped his hands ifastidiously on a white, cambric handkerchief, then leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully toyed with his scented, well-waxed mustache. ‘““Ah, yes, Gonzales,’ he said with an af- fected simper. ‘TI believe I do wish to have a talk with you. Yes.” He nodded as if he had had doubts on the matter but that they were now cleared up. | “Tt is hard to remember anything in this cursed hole called Lourenco Marques. I shall always regret that we did not sell it to the greedy English. That would bea so- easy way to defeat our enemies: Sell them this so beautiful sea-port; in a little while the garrison will all have died of blackwater and we take the port back again to sell to another empire-grabbing nation. There now,” he chuckled, “is not that a wonder- ful scheme? I will send a memorandum of it to His Excellency the Governor.” The man called Gonzales scowled and tugged impatiently at his gray-flecked beard; his nostrils twitched constantly as if he were trying to detect the source of a cloy- ing odor which pervaded the room. “You did not send for me just in order that I might listen to your buffonery, did you?” he growled. ‘‘You presume too far COMIGDIOOKSEEO