Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12 — page 98: what you’re looking at

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

Exhausted, specchless, Dineen came to his camp bleeding from leeches, his feet cut and gashed, his face gray and grim. He gave the command to go out and fell into Inbam’s arms. They carried him in a hammock to the dark river and canoe. Repentant over deserting him, Inbam made that trip comfortable and brought him to the house of Rourke’s native wife. For days he lay, nursed by native women, drinking the bitter herb tea that combats fever, his body massaged with scented unguents, his appetite tempted with delicacies. Rourke’s wife asked no ques- tions, but Inbam called daily and talked with her for hours. Dineen knew that she heard from Inbam what had happened in the jungle. Her house was cool and pleasant, and in time she tried to amuse Dineen with her dances, her body sheathed in glittering metal cloth sewn with little mirrors. She crooned songs and tapped the soft-voiced bells, and one night she began the love pantun he had heard roared from the voice of an ape-man in the jungle. Dineen started up from his couch protesting, “Not that soug!” he cried aghast. i “No?” she asked, her hands still stroking chimes from the Pell gong. i “It is the song I sang to my man in the night, Tuan. A song he loved. i And it is time I] was doing what must be done.” “What must you do?” he asked, “Luan, the enemy that tortured him nvust die. Inbam has told me much, and you shouted much in the fever which tortured you. Omar | Sung Loo shall not continue his evil magic and fill the jungle with fear!” Her small body scemed to grow in height and dignity. Her soft eyes were black fire. : Dincen protested very little. No white man can argue a native from a blood feud, and Dineen had no pity for Omar Sung Loo or the , surgeons who provided his cages with animal freaks. With a arash of her hands on the bell-gong, Rourke’s wife ran to her room and returned wrapped in a black sarong. She went from the house and did not return until just before dawn. She slept that | day like a woman drugged, but the servants looked after Dineen. That night as they sat cross-legged at the tiny low table, she ate little, and again as the moon rose she went from the house. It was two days before she returned. Dincen was wakened by a sound and saw her swaying as she made her way through the house to her room, Then for several days she stayed in the house and seemed to regain spirits that had been exhausted on those nights she was away. A week passed, and one day she said to Dineen: | “Tuan, word has been carried to Omar Sung Loo that there is good tiger-hunting near here. He is coming to trap them. But you must not leave the house while he ts near.” A weird chill touched Dineen’s flesh. It was evening, with a red 06 comicbooks.com