Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

THE GOLD-DUST RAJAH. a disadvantage, owing to the fact that they Struck one another as often as they struck their prisoners, for Lansdell was going like a shuttle among them. Then Marcia was down, her light dress billowing on the sur- face of the stream. He was beside her before he knew what had felled him. Choking and strangling, he still fought for his life and hers. Seeing the drowning all but accomplished, those Dyaks who had hung back in fear now came swarming down the bank, cheering on the few gathered about the struggling vic- lims. A very bedlam of triumph arose then: ““Gubu! Gubu! Gubu is the great sor- ceress!”’ But now another weird and inexplicable happening: From a point only a rod or two down-river, of a sudden a wide sheet of flame went forestward, once more lighting the houses, the clearing where the dead lay, the roofing sky, the wall of the jungle; it circled the kampong witn a twisting, ser- pentlike motion, and made, as it darted at lightning speed, the sound of a long, suck- ling breath—s/oo-00-o0sh! As an unearthly glow lit the scene, all those red-lipped black mouths of the Dyaks to clutch the throat of a supposed enemy, gaped and moaned, and their rolling eyes stood out upon their cheeks in horror as they saw the very heavens swept bv a mammoth brush. Shrieking, like one they faced in the only direction that seemed free of the fire—the river; paddles, spears, and torches fell upon the stream out of the hands that held them; and as Lansdell caught up the half- drowned girl, the last light spluttered out, hiding from sight the bobbing heads of the swimmers. Lansdell wasted no breath in exulting. The dripping weight in his arms was almost more than he could carry. Gasping for breath, he staggered along the bank to where that rushing path of fire had had its beginning. ; As he charged blindly through the black- ness, just ahead of him a rifle began a steady pop-pop-pop-pop-popping—at which there sounded a chorus of gurgling cries from out in the stream. And out of the jungle beyond the stream. terrified mon- S47 keys, roused by all the tumult of the strug- gle and by the flames, sent up a hideous screaming and chattering. CHAPTER NII. KWONG'S MENTOR. S that praz which was furnished with the ogee roof made its way swiftly down the wide, yellow water-route, though the first light of dawn had not yet come, Lansdell, sitting forward and peering toward the stern of the craft, could just dimly see the figure of the steersman at it Showed above the top of the gracefully bending roof. The paddle in the hands of the man made a dark line at his side. The end of his Cigarette was a round, red spot which grew or became small with the regular breath of the smoker. His clothes dripping into the bottom of the canoe, his body sore with the pounding he had received at the hands of the Dyaks, Lansdell grinned at that steersman, recall- ing how, as he had carried the unconscious girl along the bank he had stumbled against the body of a man, had dropped his burden who was already seizing him, and had found in his hands—a queue! Now, out in the middle of the water- road, the prau, skillfully directed, was traveling like a live thing that feared pur- Suit, swaying a little from side to side as it sped, so that the end of the cigarette at the stem now and again described various spirals and circles, as Kwong Wing leaned this way and that, balancing himself where he stood. The rushing canoe seemed to be carrying its load into the dawn. For soon Lansdell could see the Chinese more clearly—-the smooth, round face with shadowed hollows for eyes; the padded jacket worn against the cool of the night, the freshly lighted cigarette back from which, over a shoulder where that queue hung down, floated a thin wisp of smoke, like a bit of light-blue gauze. Presently Wansdell could see occupant of the praw more clearly. the other Under CO GIOok