Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

a sinall thing—well, I admit that damned gong gave me a start. It's that fool Yotai Lao, bringing his nasty joss sticks and Buddhas into a decent town— for a half-penny I'd bribe some Moslem fanatic to cut his yellow throat and sink his confounded gong into the gulf. And I'll tell you why I hate the thing. “My name,” he said, “is Bill Kirby. It was in Jibuti on the Gulf of Aden that ] met John Conrad. A slim, keen-eyed young New Englander he was— professor too, for all his youth. Victim of obsession also, like most of his kind. He was a student of bug, and it was a particular bug that had brought him to the East Coast; or rather, the hope of the blooming beast, for he never found it. It was almost uncanny to sce the chap work himself into a blaze of enthu- siasm when speaking on his favorite subject. No doubt he could have taught me much I should know, but insects are not among my enthusiasms, and he talked, dreamed and thought of little else at first. . . . “Well, we paired off well from the start. He had money and ambitions and I had a bit of experience and a roving foot. We got together a small, modest but efficient safari and wandered down into the back country of Somaliland. Now you'll hear it spoken today that this country has been exhaustively ex- plored and I can prove that statement to be a lie. We found things that no white man has ever dreamed of. “We had trekked for the best part of a month and had gotten into a part of the country I knew was unknown to the average explorer. The veldt and thorn forests gave way to what approached real jungle and what natives we saw were a thick-lipped, low-browed, dog-toothed breed—not like the Somali at all. We wandered on though, and our porters and askari began muttering among themselves. Some of the black fellows had been hobnobbing with them and telling them tales that frightened them from going on. Our men wouldn't talk to me or Conrad about it, but we had a camp servant, a half-caste named Selim, and I told him to see what he could learn. That night he came to my tent. We had pitched camp in a sort of big glade and had built a thorn boma; for the lions were raising merry Cain in the bush. ““Master,’ he said in the mongrel English he was so proud of, ‘them black fella he is scaring the porters and askari with bad ju-ju talk. They be tell about a mighty ju-ju curse on the country in which we go to, and—’ “He stopped short, turned ashy, and my head jerked up. Out of the dim, jungle-haunted mazes of the south whispered a haunting voice. Like the echo of an echo it was, yet strangely distinct, deep, vibrant, melodious. I stepped irom my tent and saw Conrad standing betore a fire, taut and tense as a hunting hound, “Did you hear that?’ he asked. ‘What was it?’ ““A native drum,’ I answered—but we both knew I lied. The noise and chatter of our natives about their cooking-fires had ceased as if they had all died suddenly. “We heard nothing more of it that night, but the next morning we found ourselves deserted. The black boys had decamped. with all the luggage they could lay hand to. We held a council of war, Conrad, Selim and I. The half- caste was scared pink, but the pride of his white blood kept him carrying on. ““What now?’ I asked Conrad. ‘We’ve our guns and enough supplies to 4 comiclsooks.com