Jungle Terror

lt With . 200 XVII. Kriegs Legacy . . 213 XVIII. Weisner . . . . . 226 XIX. A Lust Discovery . 235 JUNGLE TERROR JUNGLE TERROR CHAPTER I THE CABLEGRAlLi D God said unto the serpent I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise its heel. - Also, we know from less holy writ that a snake, though scotched, continues to be venomous and wags its tail until the very sundown of its day. Alone, at a table in the best caf6 in a shabby little South American capital which must here be nameless, sat a sun-browned Yankee lost in the contemplation of the smoke of his cigarette. He was thin, lank, with introspective, pale, blue eyes-ne of those men whose strength both of mind and of body is hidden from the careless observer men who look indolent, impractical, and yet are to be found, somehow, always where the worlds work is toughest and its dangers most subtle and deadly. A suit of well-worn khaki suggested at first some sort of military service, but the absence of braid, to say nothing of the com- fortable slouch of his shoulders, showed him to be civilian. He had, with it all, an air of being at one and the same time lost and perfectly and unutterably at home. Ross Purdy would, in fact, have felt at home anywhere. And yet for the moment he did wonder why he happened to be in that particular spot. There was absolutely nothing to do. The war was over German intrigue in the far quarters of the earth a thing of an unbelievable past. Why, then, THE CABLEGRAM 5 did not the Government let him return to Washington or, say, to Washington Square Truly, orders were strange things, past finding out. There must be a reason be- hind them. But it was nonsense not to trust a man. A cable for you, sefior, said a waiter, laying a yellow envelope on the table. Purdy nodded, but did not take his hands from his pockets. So here was something definite at last. But, since it had been so long in reaching him, there was no hurry about it. He, too, could take his time. Pride has its demands, after all. The theatre-like room was drowsy under the spell of the late afternoon. Overhead a number of creaking rotary fans, with long wooden arms as crazy as Don Quixotes windmills, drove down the hot breath of the Tropic of Capricorn, but fell just short of creating a breeze. In an hour the city would begin to wake from its siesta, and fill the cafE with gaiety carefully imitated from gaiety of New York, London, and more especially Paris. But as yet, the whole world seemed half asleep. Now and then some fellow idler, willing to scrape up an acquaintance, would pass near Purdys table. One, a stout, boyish individual, with an air of counterfeit reck- lessness that strove. in vain with a home- sickness that was all too real, passed several times but did not succeed in catching his eye. From the doorway a party of tourists had Purdy pointed out to them as a one- time revolutionist, and swallowed the story without a gulp. And all the while that unopened cable- gram lay there eyeing its recipient re- proachfully from the table. He endured it as long as he could... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.