Richmond planet. [volume], December 13, 1930, ILLUSTRATED FEATURE SECTION, Page 2, Image 8

About Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938

Image provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA

                
The BLACK LILY
Ao p n j -|-v • ■ • j Nationally Known
Story or Komance and Dar mg, Laid Serial Writer
in the Intrigue of a Strange South American Cult
SYNOPSIS
John Northington, athletic young adventurer, is wounded by a poisoned
arrow while stealing through the South American jungle. His assailant is
an INNER GUARD of THE TEMPLE OF THE BLACK LILY. A mysterious
girl, clad only in an altar cloih from the temple, saves him after he hay
killed the guard. She drops on him suddenly from the lower branches of a
tree and sucks the wound free of the poison. He recognizes her as the sweet
heart of his friend Ramon. She is surprised, but together they make their
way back toward Ramon’s camp.
Cries and sinister sounds tell them that Ramon is being put to the tor
ture for seeking to take his sweetheart from the temple where she has been
incarcerated as the CHOSEN BRIDE OF THE BLACK LILY. They seek
to escape when a pirogue, filled with priests seeking the girl, comes around
the bend of the river, and is upon them before they know it. A sudden rain
of arrows fills the air about them.
Then
INSTALLMENT II
Through the Jungle
With the speed of a trained
Athlete John Northington
cleared the space of black
mud lying between him and
the thick tropical under
growth. A second leap and
he was bending over the
moaning girl. An arrow was
imbedded in the soft flesh of
her arm.
With a single movement, he flung
her to his shoulder and tore at the
arrow. It was barbed. In spite of
her stifled moan of pain at the re
sistant pull against her lacerated
flesh, John Northington breathed a
sigh of relief. A barbed dart was not
a poisoned one. There was time for
attention to that later, ie could give
most of his attention to flipht now.
A single fleeting glance at the girl
whose body suddenly sagged against
him told him that she had fainted
from the pain. He was glad. Idle
problem was simplified still further
by this unconsciousness. He did hot
need to have thp task made mwe
difficult by her involuntary groans of
pain.
Behind him the guttural cries were
confused and excited. They were de
bating among themselves. It gave
him the moment of time he needed
to get his bearing. Inside the forest
the darkness had already fallen. The
night dangers of the jungle gave
pause to even those hardy pursuers
behind him.
Death lurked everywhere in that
black wilderness of poisonous growth
and savage animal and reptile life.
But something worse than death
lay behind, not for him, but for the
girl, Dolores Ramirez, betrothed of his
friend and classmate, Ramon Montez,
in whose service he had dared the
dangers through which he had al
ready passed, and was still passing.
For himself death, perhaps, or most
surely, torture. But death in the end
was not to be feared only fought. But
for the girl
Boldly he stepped forward deeper
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into the black darkness of the forest.
Something brushed against his face.
It was cold and clammy. A sudden
scuttering of leaves followed the
eerie touch. A slithering lizard drop
ped heavily onto the path behind
him.
Somewhere above him, monkeys set
up a terrible jangle of chattering. A
panther cat screamed far off in the
nigh»!
John Northington paused, listening.
The girl on his shoulner lay limp. He
could feel the warm smearing of ozz
ing blood against his neck where her
wounded arm hung limply.
He raised his free arm to wipe the
dripping sweat from his forehead. It
brushed against a swinging vine. Des
peration seized him. There was no
need trying to penetrate any deeper
into this dense blackness. Overhead
the tangled roof of greenery shut out
every faint ray of light. No stray
gleam from moon or star would pene
trate here.
A sudden inspiration came to him.
Laying hold of the heavy, arm-sized
tendril of tough vine, he felt about
with his foot until it caught in the
convolutions just above the ground.
Slowly, laboriously, fending the still
unconscious girl as best he could with
his own body bent over her, he began
a groping climb.
He knew that in the matted upper
reaches of vine and tree he could find
a temporary resting place. That it
might be already occupied by more
dangerous foes, he knew; but the
chance must be taken.
There was no question that the up
per reaches of the tree were safer
than the infested earth. No enemy
could be crueller than those gray
robed priests of the Black Lily, when
balked of their prey, as he knew that
this flight of the Chosen Bride of the
annual feast, had balked them.
Once, as he made his way upward,
a big bat, dislodged from his hold,
struck blindly with nis wing against
the face of the girl. She groaned and
moved. He knew that he must stop
soon, for the girl, once conscious,
would be in horrible pain. Feeling
about him with feet and free hand,
he discovered ? sort of matted net
work that would bear their combined
weight.
He scrambled gropingly into the
swaying platform of vine and twig
and settled himself as comfortably as
possible holding the girl’s body close.
The Hostile Sentinel
Scarcely was he seated before she
moved restlessly He spoko soothing
ly, as one does to a waking child who
comes suddenly back to conscious
ness from troubled dreams.
“It is all right, senorita. Take it
easy now.” With an involuntary
scream of pain the girl shuddered
away from him. The arrow had been
torn out in the ascent and the gaping
wound was bleeding anew.
As well as he could, in the darkness,
the man tore strips from his shirt
and staunched the flow of blood. He
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had no matches, and his flashlight
had been dropped in the earlier part
of his flight. There was nothing to
do but wait till morning came.
The horror of the night of fear and
pain was a memory that John North
ington never forgot. But at last it
came to a close.
When the gray cold dawn crept like
a ghost between the rank green in
terstices of the awakened forest, the
man turned his attention io the busi
ness of going on. The girl, weakened
beyon' protest or help, lay laxly in
his a*.--s only groaning faintly from
time to time as he made his way
carefully to the ground below. Once
there, he set her gently down, but
she was beyond walking.
For a while he let her rest on the
soft mat of rotted leaf-mold that
formed the jungle floor. Then, very
gently, he took some remnants of his
tattered shirt and did his best for the
wound in her arm. The girl only
moaned faintly.
When he rose from his crude at
tempt at first aid, he heard a sud
den crackling of underbrush, off to
his right. He straightened to atten
tion, listening. The girl’s eyelids
fluttered open. A look of unspeak
able terror overspread her face.
“They hafe fin’ our trail senor,”
she whispered hopelessly. A guttural
crj came, in weirdly carrying ulula
tions, as if borne from tree to tree
by some devilish agency from an un
seen world.
With desperate determination, John
Northington seized the wounded girl
, once more and lifted her to his
shoulder.
Suddenly the woods seemed alive
with gruesome shouts and hair
raising yells. They seemed to come
from all directions at once. Blindly,
with no thought of direction but with
the wild desire of a strong man for
action in danger, carrying the girl
limply dangling over his shoulder, he
leaped forward.
The lower limbs of the trees whip
ped across his face and body pitiless
ly as he plunged ahead, aimlessly.
The sounds seemed to be closing
in on him.
His breath came in gasps. Blood
streamed from the cuts on his face
and blinded him. The girl had ceased
to cry out at the stinging blows on her
tender flesh, where the low, swinging
boughs caught her.
Suddenly the gleam of water caught
the light and was reflected to the
half-blinded sight of the man.
With a last desperate spurt of
strength, John Northington, the
moaning girl held firmly by his left
arm, broke through the tangled bar
rier of rank trcpic undergrowth sep
arating him from the muddy bank of
the stream.
He found himself at one end of the
horn of the same crescent shaped
stretch of black slime from which he
had made his hurried flight the pre
vious mgm.
The scattered ash of a huge fire,
near the tree-line and toward the
center of the stretch of clear space,
gave mute evidence of the recent
presence of the sinister group whose
lone sentinel stood on guard at the
prow of the beached pirogue.
The pirogue lay immediately before
the fleeing man high up on the horn
of the black beach at the point where
he had burst through. The sentinel,
wrapped in his gray green cloak, was
standing facing the upper stretch of
the river, his bow held loosely in his
right arm.
At the sudden noise behind him he
wheeled bringing the weapon, already
Strung, up to his shoulder.
Simultaneously, John Northington
dropped the girl unceremoniously on
to the soft pelts strewing the bottom
of the long unoccupied pirogue. Even
as she fell, he leaped forward.
The nearness and sudden surprise
of the attack were too much for the
guard. Quick as he was, he was too
slow for that panther-like move. His
arm was automatically flung high
and wide by th? quick lunge accom
panied with a terrific blow to the
chin. The deadly arrow, winged with
the scarlet feathers of death, sang
harmlessly toward the blue as the
archer measured his full length in
the black mud.
In the distance the cries and shouts
were growing fainter. John North
ington stooped above the prone fig
ure for a moment.
One glance at the awkwardly im
< Continued on page 7)
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