Adventure Magazine Cover — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

116 stared with pop-eyed challenge at the gaping mouth, with foul breath, that yawned at him. Pelew rolled over, scrambled away, yelling; and men who came running, stopped, terrified, helpless. The revolver had been knocked from Heddon’s hand and was lost somewhere under the snake’s body. Madame had said that Baal-Phelgor was wise, and full of hate for Abdul. It seemed that this was actually so; or else the snake, no wiser than any animal held by the throat, sensed that the only way to escape was to kill this man in the only way that a great snake could. The base of its jaws gave Abdul a hand-hold from which the python could not pull free; and Abdul, with noisy heaving and breathing, angered, excited, trampled this way and that, stamping, pull- ing, jerking, as he tried to break the supple neck. Heddon, with one arm pinned to his side, was entangled in coils that slipped, as if the python crawled toward Abdul but still held fast to the other enemy, and squirm against that writhing hawser of muscles as he did, Heddon, now back down, now face down, could not get free in the very few seconds that seemed lke a long fight. Again and again the sliding coils paused to squeeze constrictively, but with lessening force, for Abdul, grunting, puffing, swearing as he yanked, took the python’s attention, and more and more of its length went from around Heddon’s body toward Abdul, while the astonished men of the crew stood and stared as if frozen. Old Tom had run for an ax; Raeburn, awakened by the noise, stood on the deck- house, looking down with a kind of blank horror at this hawser-like monster that fought two powerful men, with its mouth ferociously agape, at times almost against Abdul’s face; and the length of body that reached between Heddon and Abdul’s hands, writhed in whorls, powerfully; the thing struggled, as if for more than life— for the death of its enemies. The bight of its body whipped from the deck high in the air; it squirmed, twisted, doubled itself into swirling knots, all in a _contortionate flurry. Then a man of the crew, with a face paler than his ghost would ever be, leaped for- ward with arms outflung, grapplingly; the body of the snake struck him aside, GORDON YOUNG knocking him down many feet away; and the python, which had seemed to regard Heddon as a sort of anchor to keep itself from being dragged all over the deck, suddenly let go of him and with great writhing flurries rap- idly coiled around and around Abdul. Abdul’s bellow ended in a hoarse gasp; his eyes bulged; he staggered drunkenly, lost balance under the crushing weight that was wrapped about him and toppled head- long. His mouth was wide open, his eyes were frightfully distended; the muscular coils about him rippled with constrictive pressure, and the python lashed its free length of tail as if to knock away other men who might come into the fight; but Abdul’s hands were clamped still at the throat of the snake. Men came with arush. Young Raeburn leaped from the deck-house; Haskell, the man of the crew who had been knocked aside, ran in head down as if blindly to where Heddon struggled with the free length of the snake’s body, trying to un- wind the coils. Old Tom had come with an ax, but he jumped about, swearing futilely, afraid to strike lest the blow glance on Abdul or against some other of the men that seemed to flounder all over the python, pulling at the slippery body that squirmed free of their hands. Then T’eeay Layeen, with a cool, quick, outreaching gesture, took away the ax from Old Tom, and drove the blade into the deck, half severing the snake’s neck, striking through the backbone, a hand’s breadth be- low Abdul’s fingers. The python broke its coils and thrashed convulsively, scattering the men, tripping and knocking them about, covering them with blood. With another blow, quickly, skillfuly given, T’eeay Layeen severed the head. The python was killed but not life- less; for a time it thrashed in a way that made the men stand far off; and the head- less body rippled and twisted powerfully, as if still blindly trying to fight, till the men, sickened by the stench and feel of its blood-slimed body, gathered the thing up and heaved it overboard. ‘The head that lay on the deck still gaped at them as if defiantly. And Abdul, crushed internally, suffering a pain as terrible as poison, died there. Heddon wearily got from his knees beside Abdul and looked about. Young Raeburn, blood-smeared, was huddled down by a Co lOOOLK C©@ 5}