Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

606 “Tt let my mind lie sleeping. It sleeps and a rhythm fills me—like that music. I am a checker then, I am at one with all things. If I hunt I am an animal—I know what he knows—feel what he feels. In all things I leave my mind and pierce deep into the heart of nature. If that is what you mean by luck, then luck is my god.” More talk of this kind brought them both into shadowy ways where the words they spoke welled from hidden sources and cloaked hidden meanings. Without thought they spoke, and though they did not know it, their voices attuned themselves to the sounds from the valley, their words held the - smell of ancient questions unanswered to this day, questions that were asked when man first wondered. Aguilar finally spat out his derision of Jan’s petty superstitions and pointed in scorn to a rabbit’s foot tipped with gold, that hung to his watch chain. The Scan- dinavian glowered at this insult and rose to his feet, hands working strangely toward the face that mocked his gods. It would have been a fight to the death, for both men were stripped to the raw, irri- tated by the constant burning of the sun by day and the monotonous horror of the night—had not the music stopped dead as they crouched ready for the leap, Aquilar with a keen edged knife held close to him, Jan with his great-fists opening and shut- ting. Like pricked balloons they subsided and watched each other shamefacedly. Then they went to sleep on opposite sides of the tent. Some time during the next day Jan dis- covered the absence of his rabbit’s foot and spent an hour grumbling and searching, until Aquilar joined in the hunt for want of something better to do. All day long Jan pressed his quest of the missing charm and became sullen and quiet as the night came on. Over their supper of canned beef, bis- cuits and tea, followed by a bitter dessert of quinine, Nordvek solemnly prophesied disaster for them both because of his loss. ~ Aquilar kept silent, rubbing his lips with -a nervous hand, watching his friend with a queer shifting look. The darkness fell swiftly and with it the rotting vegetation — ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. — seemed to puff up tenuous mists. They strained their ears, and in the stillness the Snapping of the cooling specimen cases sounded like shots, startling for them, for they had not noticed the sound before this night. Straining and breathless they listened again—and both realized that the jungle was not roaring. The silence was awful and harder to bear than: the evil sounds of the previous nights. | Aquilar twisted to this feet and slunk across the tent to open the flap. A full moon lit the clearing with uncanny bright- ness. He stared at the impenetrable mass of the jungle for a long breathless period, then came to Nordvek, mincing like a cat, and spoke, his voice full of the night. “You claim you are one with all things. You scorn knowledge—science—intelli- gence? Very well! Let us-go into the jungle this night and prove our talk. You who are lucky at games—I who am not so lucky. We will go separately to the river and come back—perhaps—with the flowers of which Whistler spoke. So you hesitate? You fear to test your luck? Checker games! Are they all that you dare to play? How about a game with death? Come, a tournament—your luck against the knowledge you know I possess of jungle- craft and the ways and dangers of these devils from hell.” It was characteristic of Nordvek that he rose without speaking and with his carved staff in hand left the tent first. Aquilar stared in amazement, breathed sibilant curses and snatched his knife from its sheath. He had not planned that Jan should escape so easily. If this big brag- gart should be flayed, it was he and he only who would strip his skin from him. He ran after the disappearing form of the man who had been his friend, but stopped at the sound of a song from Nordvek’s lips, a song as ancient as the night itself. To Aquilar it sounded like the frantic drumming of the little people as it boomed from the jungle. Then he knew that he could not follow—that his courage oozed from him with each note of the fading song ~—and he cursed, for he knew that Jan was one with the night, as he had said. — oO cComichoo SCO