Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

338 with a mixture of curiosity and awe, he dis- played nothing more fearful than several rolls of absorbent cotton. His back was to the girl. Suddenly, as he knelt, he heard her give a cry of Joyous surprise. Whirling about, he saw that she was staring at something she held in her hand—a small, blackish object which was like a roll of paper. As he joined her, and took the find in his hand, he noted that the Dyaks who were watching showed sudden and unaccountable excitement, jabbering low to one another, their looks frightened. He turned on them. ‘ A-a-a-h!” he tri- umphed. “ Upon this charm is fixed the shadows of the men of Moeara Koli!”’ “Sir,” implored one man, “does my shadow stand thereon?” ‘“The shadows of all stand upon this!” Lansdell replied. ‘“‘ Alas, if harm comes to it, not a house of the village shall stand! The dead will rise up! No orchard will give yield!” The men murmured, slinking back a step or two, plainly apprehensive. While Lans- dell, making a great show of what he was doing, took a leaf from a branch that was bending down toward the platform and wrapped in it that small roll. “ This is luck!” he told Marcia. “‘ I know how superstitious they are! And I'll play this card for all it’s worth!” “¥ou don’t know how it made me feel to find it!” she answered. ‘Somehow I don't seem so far away from the world. Oh, Philip, to think that just a few days ago other people like ourselves were here, and got away all right!” “ Thank heaven,” he laughed, “‘ that they left behind them a sample of their celluloid film.” CHAPTER IX. THE GONG. OW borne on stretchers, hastily con- trived by laying a number of spears across two long paddles, the wounded began to arrive by twos and threes, and were placed on beds made of mats laid sev- eral deep. Some of the men were suffering tortures, though they uttered no complaints. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Tor the relief of those, Lansdale brought out that scarlet-wound phial from Banjar- masin and administered a tiny, sleep-in- ducing pellet to those who were not uncon- scious. A few moments later, a long line of brown bodies—eleven in all—was rest- ing free from pain despite the ugly knife- thrusts. Assisted by the girl, who was evidently more reassured than formerly, Lansdell next proceeded from patient to patient, cleansing the wounds, medicating them, stanching the loss of blood, and binding, choosing the most dangerous cases first, and working as swiftly as possible. “Are any of Barkers men among these?” Marcia asked him. He shook his head, drawing his breath through his teeth in a mirthless laugh. ‘ Barker’s men are either safe in the jun- gle,” he answered, “or else thev’re past doctoring.” Fires were being lighted in a circle about the platform, this for the driving away of mosquitoes and other troublesome insects. Lansdell requisitioned all netting from the long huts and the supplies at the landing place. This being hung in a swaying wall about the platform, the sick were soon guarded from the winged tormentors. But those fires were not allowed to die down at once. About them, squatting, formed rings of Dyaks, each with a bamboo stick at the end of which was a bit of the flesh of a boar. ‘The men of this village were out hunt- ing, you sce,” Lansdell explained. ‘“ Bark- er’s Malays knew that somehow or other, and took advantage of it.”’ “Philip,” returned the girl, “ do vou no- tice how quiet the crowd is now?” ‘““Might be a party of college girls,” he laughed, ‘‘ toasting marshmallows!” Strips of the boar’s thick hide were cooked, and more than once this food was offered to the white man and the girl in- Side the mosquito bar. But neither would accept such tidbits, through lunch at the brief camp on the jungied shore of the river had afforded both their last taste of food. Among those who were nearest the plat- form was Dukut. Every little while. be- tween the wolfing of his meal, he tumed Conn lDOOlK