Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

Dineen came from that interview with a chill in spite of the tropic heat. Undoubtedly Rourke’s wife was fey. Her passion for Rourke was apparent, her loyalty intense. She talked quecrly, cautiously, but she said evil had befallen her man, She had heard him calling in agony yet warning her not to try to reach him, Te was not dead, yet devils tormented him. He loved her, yet their life together was ended. He commanded her not to avenge him as love might prompt. Dineen realized that she accepted her loss with native philosophy but she was waiting to learn the mystery regarding Rourke and brooding ven- geance in spite of his warning. ; Dineen decided to search for his chief trapper, and Rourke’s wife sent him a relative of her family named Inbar who knew Rourke and was loyal to his wife. Inbam gathered native carriers and supplies for the trip, one item of which surprised Dincen, a supply of thick long candics, Dineen reminded Inbam that they had flashlights, but the natives said Rourke always carried “corpse-candles,” which in case of his death were to be lighted around his body. Rourke’s wife added her gift for good luck, a treasured crucifix of Rourke’s, finely carved of ebony and ivory wrapped in a length of silk, which Dmeen placed in the box containing the “corpse-candles” and some canned and bottled delicacies for his own personal use. Native canoes took them up shoreless rivers where mangrove pods ripen on branches and drep roots in tenuous webs bedded in the coze. Crocodiles rested their opened jaws on the roots and small sicsac birds flew in and out taking ood particles from their fangs. ‘The country swarined with small monkeys that scattered when a big orang-outang would come along and peer curiously at the canoes. Dineen noticed his natives were uneasy from the start, and their fears affected him. But there were compensations for the discomforts of insects and leeches and guarding against the swinging tails of crocodiles. The mountain peaks were mist-wreathed, the wooded jungles held orchids like tinted Hames. Birds of Paradise danced on upper tree branches at sunrise. There were flashes of gaudy parrots and butterflies like wind- blown bits of gay silks. They found a blazed trail where Rourke had cut his way inland. But the irritating thing to Dincen was the constant torturing roll and stuttering of native drums talking back and forth. Inbam, who understood the drum gossip, was worried. The other natives wanted to turn back, but there is a penalty for deserting a white man in the jungle; also, Inbam held over them the fear of ven- geance from Rourke’s wife, who had a definite reputation as a sor- ceress. Leaving the canoes, they went through saw-edged jungle grass, lagued by leeches and stinging insects. Around the evening camp- Fire the men picked off leeches and polished their jimats, w. hich are comichbooks.com