Avon Fantasy Reader No. 11 — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

captive. Then he became aware that the assegai was stuck in the earth a few feet behind them while its long shaft still quivered between them. The anger of utter outrage swept over Mogglesby. He roared out to know what in the hell the guard meant, flinging a r without warning. The black guard on the gate appeared frightened in his turn. He disap- peared with the suddenness of a marionette. Through the interstices of the poles Mogglesby saw him jump down and go running toward the huts. A little later he heard a score or more voices approaching the stockade from the inside. The Englishman began walking backward in the open space to be out of immediate range of their spears if this reenforcement should de- cide to throw their assegars. The black men, however, did not line up on the wall as Mogglesby had feared, They flung open the gate and came out into the dark field shouting: “Ho, Jolo did not know you: He only recognized the woman Luomo.” Mogglesby listened to this loud apology in angry amazement. “You say he recognized the woman! By Jove, does this Jolo let fly an assegat every time he sees the woman Luomo?” Among the black men pouring out to meet him came one bearing a torch, a dignified man whose enormous earplates lent a conventionality to his bearing. “Master,” said this leader, “Jolo crawls in the dust. His head is under your feet.” ~ | “But why did he throw in the first place, if he recognized the woman?” pressed the white man tartly. The dignified leader with the torch lifted a placating hand. “It was dark, master, and he thought you were surely some one else.” “Who else?” “You won't take offense, master; it was very dark. It was impossible for Jolo to see you.” “Yes, that much is all right,” agreed the Englishman, his curtosity over- coming his anger to a great extent. ‘Now I'd like to know who he thought I was. Who is the usual companion of this woman at whom your guards first fling an assegat and make inquries afterward?” “Master,” said the dignified man with the torch, ‘‘the truth is, Jolo thought it was a—wood-man.” “A gorilla?” “It was dark,” repeated the head-man quickly. “That's all right, but for you to imagine this woman—to come with Mogglesby stared at the woman he had caught and whom now he, un- consciously, had liberated during this incident. He recalled the peculiar chat- tering noise she had made when she had first approached him in the jungle and a sort of creepy feeling went over him. He looked at her in the light of the head-man’s torch. She was of generous Juno proportions and would have been handsome in Mogglesby’s eyes if her features and hair had not been African. But the idea that this woman went out deliberately to meet... 31 Comicbooks.com