Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12 — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

charms against evil. The villagers met with were friendly and they remembered Rourke Zoing through, but refused to furnish guides. “There are debbil-debbils® they said. Inbam translated, but Dineen did not scoff. There was a tangible apprehension in his own mind, a feeling of weird things going for- ward in the jungle. He decided that a rest from the laborious travel- ling and a little hunting might cheer the men. Birds were plentiful. So at the foot of a hill range standing like the vertebra: of a monster that had fossilized as it crawled seaward, they made camp. Dineen’s personal supplies were kept in a hut they built on high stilt legs. He was sitting in the doorway one sundown when he saw a huge orang-outang standing in the crotch of a near-by tree holding the branches apart and peering down, Inbam also saw it and silently handed up a gun to Dineen’s hand. Instantly the branches crashed together, Ne ape fled, and the swish of other branches springing back as it leaped from one to another told of its size and weight. That night the native drums were livelier. Inbam went to the nearest village and returned late with a tale that kept Dineen awake longer than usual. He said a native girl had been carried into the jungle by one of the orang-outangs. The villagers were mourning her oss and talking about terrible magic in the hills. Inbam’s own tale was interrupted as he ceased speaking and pointed toward the tree, and in the moonlight Dineen saw again an orang-outang with its fangs bared as if it grinned. There came a bellow from that hairy throat which sent the men lying around the small campfire scuttling toward the hut, their curved knives ready for defense. The big ape stood on a branch balanced by its hand-grip on a higher limb and from its black lips came sounds so uncouth that Dineen felt the hair prickling on the nape of his neck. He could bave sworn he heard the creature mouth words: “By, Tuan, by...” which means “It is true, Tuan.” A silence bred of fear held Dincen mute. Slowly and Jaboriousl the great ape mouthed sounds like Malay words. The natives hud- died together, whispering in terror. At Dineen’s car Inbam breathed: “He says ‘orang puteh ubat, Tuan. He wants white man medicine. What devil is it that gives speech to a man of the woods, Tuan?” “That is foolish talk,” said Dincen stubbornly. “Your wits wander, Get the express rifle.” But at sight of Dineen with the elephant gua in his hand, the ape disappeared. Below the hut the natives were chattering in frenzied outbursts and Dineen knew they were ready to bolt. “It is an ape that somebody has trained and taught to speak,” he said, knowing it was folly to contradict their belief that the creature had used their own speech, He did not yet believe it, and his men needed to be handled carefully lest they desert him now. comichbooks.com