Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 1 — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

Rh me 5 a eee lr FIN io hig . aS gy 86 he picked up the head and tossed it after the body. “Don’t be so glum,” he admonished the former as he carried it toward the well, “smile!” “But how can he smile?” questioned the girl, a half-puzzled, half-frightened look upon her face. “He is dead.” : “That’s so,” admitted Bradley, “and I suppose he does feel a bit cut up about it.” The girl shook her head and edged away from the man—toward the door. “Come!” said the Englishman. “We’ve got to get out of here. If you don’t know a better way than the river, it’s the river then.” The girl still eyed -him askance. could he smile when he was dead?” Bradley laughed aloud. “I thought we English “But how were supposed to have the least sense of humor of | any people in the world,” he cried; “but now I’ve found one human being who hasn’t any. Of course you don’t know half I’m saying; but don’t worry, little girl; I’m not going to hurt you, and if I can get you out of here, I'll do it.” Even if she did not understand all he said, she at least read something in his smiling countenance —something which reassured her. “I do not fear you,” she said; “though I do not understand all that you say even though you speak my own tongue; and use words that I know. But as for escaping’—she sighed—“alas, how can it be done?” “T escaped from the Blue Place of Seven Skulls,” Bradley reminded her. “Come!” And he turned toward the shaft and the ladder that he had ascended from the river. “‘We cannot waste time here.” The girl followed him; but at the doorway both drew back, for from below came the sound of some one ascending. Bradley tiptoed to the door and peered cautiously into the well; then he stepped back beside the girl. ‘“‘There are half a dozen of them coming up; but possibly they will pass by this room.” “No,” she said, “they will pass directly through this room—they are on their way to Him Who Speaks for Luata. We may be able to hide in the next room—there are skins there beneath which we may crawl. They will not stop in that room; but they may stop in this one for a short time— the other room is blue.” ‘“What’s that got to do with it?” demanded the Englishman. “They fear blue,” she replied. “In every room where murder has been done you will find blue—a certain amount for each murder. When the room is all blue, they shun it. This room has much blue; but evidently they kill mostly in the next room, which is now all blue.” “But there is blue on the outside of every house ' I have seen,” said Bradley. “Yes,” assented the girl, “and there are blue rooms in each of those houses—when all the rooms are blue then the whole outside of the house will be blue as is the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. There are many such here.” “And the skulls with blue upon them?” inquired Bradley. “Did they belong to murderers?” “They were murdered—some of them; those with pend a pon MROED: of blue were murderers— he Fe sh lig Feb AMAZING STORIES known murderers. All Wieroos are murderers. When they have committed a certain number of murders without being caught at it, they confess to Him Who Speaks for Luata and are advanced, after which they wear robes with a slash of some color—I think yellow comes first. When they reach a point where their entire robe is of yellow, they discard it for a white robe with a red slash, and when one wins a complete red robe, he carries such a long, curved knife as you have in your hand; after that comes the blue slash on a white robe, and then, I suppose, an all blue robe. I have never seen such a one.” As they talked in low tones they had moved from the room of the death shaft into an all blue room adjoining, where they sat down together in a corner with their backs against a wall and drew a pile of hides over themselves. A moment later they heard a number of Wieroos enter the chamber. They ‘were talking together as they crossed the floor, or the two could not have heard them. Halfway . across the chamber they halted as the door toward which they were advancing opened and a dozen others of their kind entered the apartment. Bradley could guess all this by the increased vol- ume of sound and the dismal greetings; but the sudden silence that almost immediately ensued he could not fathom, for he could not know that from beneath one of the hides that covered him protruded one of his heavy army shoes, or that some eighteen large Wieroos with robes either solid red or slashed with red and blue were standing gazing at it. Nor could he hear their stealthy approach. The first intimation he had that he had been dis- covered was when his foot was suddenly seized, and he was yanked violently from beneath the hides to find himself surrounded by menacing blades. They would have slain him on the spot had not one clothed all in red held them back, saying He Who Speaks for Luata desired to see this strange creature. As they led Bradley away, he caught an oppor- tunity to glance back toward the hides to see what had become of the girl, and, to his gratification, he discovered that she still lay concealed beneath the hides. He wondered if she would have the nerve to attempt the river trip alone and regretted that now he could not accompany her. He felt rather all in, himself, more so than he had at any time since he had been captured by the Wieroo, for there appeared not the slightest cause for hope in his present predicament. He had even dropped the curved blade beneath the hides when he had been jerked so violently from their fancied security. It was almost in a spirit of resigned hopelessness that he quietly accompanied his captors through various chambers and corridors toward the heart of the temple. barbaric and the more sumptuous became the decorations. predominated, apparently because of their more beautiful markings, and decorative skulls became CHAPTER IV HE farther the group progressed, the more mounted in arene metals comich Hides of leopard and tiger more and more numerous. Many of the latter were Ae