Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT 27 changed mainly by taking on a load of Arabic words. Well—there wasn't a trace of the Arabic in the tongue they were speaking. “It sounded odd, of course—but I could understand quite easily. They were talking about Ruth. To be explicit, they were discussing her with exceeding frankness—” 7 “Martin!” she cried wrathfully. “Well, all right,” he went on, half repentantly. “As a matter of fact, I had seen the pair steal up. My rifle was under my hand. So I lay there quietly, listening. | , “You can realize, Walter, that when I caught sight of those two, look- ing as though they had materialized from Darius’s ghostly hordes, my scientific curiosity was aroused—prodigiously. So in my interest I passed over the matter of their speech; not alone because I thought Ruth asleep but also because I took into consideration that the mode of polite ex- pression changes with the centuries—and these gentlemen clearly be- longed at least twenty centuries back—the real truth is I was consumed with curiosity. | “They had got to a point where they were detailing with what pleas- ure a certain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear and respect would contemplate her. 1 was wondering how long my desire to observe—for to the anthropologist they were most fascinating—could hold my hand back from my rifle when Ruth awak- ened. : | “She jumped up like a little fury. Fired a pistol point blank at them. Their amazement was—well—ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, but they seemed to know nothing of firearms—they certainly acted as though they didn’t. | “They simply flew into the timber. I took a pistol shot at one but missed. Ruth hadn’t though; she had winged her man; he left a red trail behind him. | “We didn’t follow the trail. We made for the oppasite direction— | and as fast as possible. “Nothing happened that day or night. Next morning, creeping up a slope, we caught sight of a suspicious glitter a mile or two away in the direction we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In a little while, over the hill and half a mile away from us, came about two hundred of these fellows, marching along. _ “And they were indeed Darius’s men. Men of that Persia which had been dead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them, with their high, covering shields, their great bows, their javelins and armor. “They passed; we doubled. We built no fires that night—and we ought to have turned the pony loose, but we didn’t. It carried my instru- ments, and ammunition, and I felt we were going to need the latter. GOGO .S (GO)