T. S. Stribling

“ Birdsong shook his head.
“Brother Lassiter, to bend the knee to Bal is strickly against God's holy Word. I hope God'll touch your heart, Brother Lassiter——”
From this the colporteur glided into an invocation:
“Oh, Lord, do touch his hard heart! Look down on this idolatrous and adulterous man, Lord, and smite him with conviction. He don't know you, Lord, but he has let a strange woman lead him to the altar of Bal. Save him, God! Save Brother Lassiter from consorting with idolatrous women! Save him from his filthy lusts! ”

“ He could feel her form pressed against him, her milky palm against his face; then just as he swung her into destruction, he awoke with a violent start, gasping for breath, with a hammering heart and a sweating body. ”

“ Had Lassiter been a younger man, he would have rushed to the assistance of assaulted beauty, but he was wise. He watched the love fight with the amused tolerance of a bachelor of thirty-nine. The grand passion often takes the form of blows and resisted kisses. The result of these hostilities would be another tree commandeered for housekeeping in Motobatl— At that instant Lassiter saw the girl was Tilita.
The promoter leaped to his feet with a kind of spasm in his chest. ”

“ Jagala had a long face, and now the lift of his pointed brows gave him a Mephistophelean look.
“Well, some one makes it!” cried Lassiter.
“No one makes it, señor. I gather it from the cliffs.”
“How does it come there?” exclaimed the promoter.
Jagala shrugged.
“It is the gift of the sun, señor. When the sun climbs down the side of the cliff into the {{lake——”}}
“I've heard all that.”
“If you don't believe it, señor,” defended the rope gatherer, “just look at this rope and tell me if any man can make such a rope!”
Lassiter took the rope and reperused it for the hundredth time. ”

“ Suddenly he saw Balthasar was drawing his automatic. He grabbed the muleteer's elbow. During the pause, Nunes caught Lassiter's right. They came to a straining impasse. The promoter stared into Balthasar's bleeding face. Gradually the yellow man's pistol arm strained out. Lassiter flung all his failing force against it, but the muleteer's sweaty skin slipped through his hold. A panic siezed Lassiter.
He suddenly realized he would be killed. In three minutes he would have his brains blown out over a half-breed girl's kiss! ”

“ Its legs were bound tightly to its body by several turns of the mysterious rope. Jagala clipped one end of this binding cord with his obsidian blade, tossed the little animal back into the water, and unwound the cord by letting the cadaver revolve in the water. As he salvaged the line, he wound it on his arm with the rest of his findings.
When Jagala finished, the promoter took his bamboo and fished the dead body out on the stones. Jagala strolled on back toward the temple. After the carcass had dried out somewhat, Lassiter settled himself for a careful study of the dead animal. ”

“ Instead of drying in the hot sunshine, the net grew stickier and stickier.
Lassiter took a bamboo from a bit of jetsam at the edge of the lake, then went back and touched it to this viscid center. When he tried to pull it away the strands untwisted and resisted his pull with the flexibility of limed rubber. If a captive drew out one foot, it would surely thrust the other into a deeper viscosity. ”

“ Both the fighters fished out their lucifers and handed them over. Then Lassiter got unsteadily to the girl where she stood clinging to a palm. Every nerve in the man jangled. He could not make heads or tails of what Birdsong was saying. ”