Adventure Magazine Cover — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

108 flesh, break the bones in one finger then an- other, to make it so that I would show more treasure?” “Not me, no. I wouldn’t do it. But I might walk off where I couldn’t hear you yeil, and wait, while the others did it!”’ “You think I would talk, eh?” “You would, yes. Of course you would “And you—” T’eeay Layeen asked— ‘would help do that?” “You just said two minutes ago you had no faith in the word of a foreign devil. And the way you put the question, of course now I'll say— No. But by —— it is the truth! Take my share of what the others get out of you— I’ll do that quick enough. But tie a man up and poke splinters into him! No, not even a Chinaman I had a grudge against! And you, there’re things about you I like!” “You funny Christian man to believe your God cares what you do to a Chinaman to get gold. Have not your Christian God’s men made war on my people to make them use opium, which is great torture? To make poor people give up money for opium, you Christian men brought gun-ships, de- stroyed the graves of my ancestors, made even my own father go to his death because he would not tell his people to use the black smoke, and not to fight good Christian men who wanted nothing but to make poor Chinamen so sick with poppy cramps that they would take rice money from their fami- lies to buy more of what Christian men sell. I had pleasure to watch your friend be sick and groan because his opium was gone, and there was no Christian merchantman to sell him more. May the curse of it go far among your people who put war upon my people when our emperor said, ‘No more opium!’ So you—”’ T’eeay Layeen’s voice was as even and calm as if he read from an ancient book—“‘so you are not like a Christian man if you care what you do to a Chinaman when a little torture would make him give up treasure!” “Your father was killed in—” “Murdered. What you call—’ this slowly —“‘ex-e-cut-ed. That means murdered in a public place because he has not enough friends to help.” “And you turned pirate then?”’ “T turned Christian then.” “Christian?” “T went to missionaries, read in the Bible and so learned to speak like a foreign devil. 1? GORDON YOUNG I was young, but my father’s only son. If I failed, there would be none to avenge him. I was a good Christian boy, and in three years I became a servant in the house of the Admiral-Governor who killed my father. Him I killed, too, in his bed, in darkness, but the spirits of all my ances- tors were there beside me, so it was not murder—it was ex-e-cu-tion!”’ Heddon frowned thoughtfully, then: “Tf I was a Chinaman and any good, I'd feel the way you do, I suppose, about white devils, opium and all. But you can’t blame a race for what one man does, or one set of men. You’ve read the Bible, you say. Then you know that Christ was a Jew and so was Judas. Which only means there’s the best and worst in every race. There’s a low mess of whites on this ship, and I’m one of ’em. We're all after treasure. You’ve got me stirred up now with talk about an old pirate cache. And it hasn’t been so long ago since I didn’t want to hear the word ‘treasure’ again, ever! But man’sa fool, and however he tries to hide it, there’s always a glint of gold or some woman’s whisper! And if there is to be gold, Ill want my share!” Heddon said it with a kind of jeering sin- cerity, as if he did not want to be a brute, but recognized the flaw of human weakness that was in him. “And the woman?” T’eeay Layeen in- quired inscrutably. “What woman?” “Po-Shu.” “What the —— have I to do with her?”’ “She,” said T’eeay Layeen, with a faint tempting note in his voice, ‘‘she wants to be the slave to you.” ““You—”’ said Heddon without anger, just by way of clearing the air of Po-Shu—“‘you are a liar. No, you can’t tempt me to take a toy-girl for my share of pirate gold!” T’eeay Layeen answered calmly— “Vou have her heart, and her heart is a great treasure.” “Tf she had two hearts it would be all the same. She looks the Chink girl, yet on Lianfo there was some talk that she was half white?” ‘“‘Po-Shu is not soiled by one drop of for- eign devil blood. She was born in the shad- ows behind the Dragon Throne.” “Royal-blooded, you mean? Don’t be- lieve it!’ T’eeay Layeen hesitated; to Heddon it COMmMiCoooks C@