Adventure Magazine Cover — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

86 ;moment would be upon me. I straddled the window-sill but before I could grasp the pipe the knocker on the front door boomed tremendously, and a hoarse voice was crying— “Open in the king’s name!” By some remarkable coincidence, appar- ently, the story 1 had told to Ganner had become a fact. His Majesty’s soldiers evidently had arrived and they would never arouse a household without first throwing a cordon of troops about the place. In proof of this came the negro’s yell from beneath my window. The men in the next room were pouring back into the hall and I drew back from the window. Down the stairs, pell mell, they streamed, Ganner stilling their wild chorus and issuing curt orders. Leaving my retreat, I entered the adjoin- ing room and ventured to the hall door. There was no one at the head of the stairs, nor could I hear any one at the farther end of the hall. Convinced I had the second floor to myself, I stole forward until I could peer down upon the gang. Ganner stood at one side, with two pistols ready. His men were crouching behind the long table and behind chairs. One of the men gingerly approached the door and drew the bolt and threw the door open, taking care to stand behind it. For half a minute the men gaped through the opening. The man behind the door thrust out his head, then left his retreat and advanced to the threshold and nervously ducked his head forward. ‘No one here, cap’n,” he faltered, retreat- ing from the darkness and crouching against the wall. “What ’s trick is this?’’ roared Gan- ner, running to the door. I was fair bewildered. I retreated to the inner room“and received the fright of my life when I bumped into a man. In a second my hands were at his throat and he was no slave, for his face was covered with a beard. “You fool! I’m gasped. I released him and he staggered to the window and pumped for breath for a few moments. Then he was over the sill as spryasacat. Down-stairs the hubbub was rising again. Men were mounting to the upper floor. Men were rurming across the veranda. Ambros! Let go!” he Adventure ‘“‘We may be too late,” whispered old Ambros from the heart of the darkness. tae 1 It was paleeactielly supported by “®. metal contrivances, which stood out from the face of the wall ‘enough to afford a fine hold for fingers and feet. It was like descending a narrow ladder, and I had no trouble in following it until my foot struck something that yielded. A sibilant warning told me I was stepping on my rescuer’s head. For some reason he was clinging to the pipe. Two fellows with a pine-torch, racing along the side of the building, explained the situation. When almost beneath us they halted and raised a loud outcry. We were some ten or twelve feet above them and I took it for granted they had discovered us. But Ambros’ hand caught my foot and signaled for silence. I craned my neck and found myself staring into the open eyes of a dead man. The bloody condition of his throat told how he had been done to death. Having sounded the alarm, the two outlaws turned and raced for the front of the house. Ambros dropped to the ground and I plumped down beside him. “T had to remove the sentinel before I could sound the knocker,’ he whispered. Directly behind us was an open window. I discovered it was open when the head and shoulders of a man came across the sul. I grappled with him, but the trembling voice pleading, ‘‘Fo’ de Lord sake, massa!’ told me it was the slave. I drew him to the ground and he scuttled off into the night like a frightened rabbit. “Come!” commanded old Ambros. ‘Your horse is near here.”’ But the open window and the dead man fascinated me. Ganner’s followers were ig- norant men for the most part. I picked up the sentinel and pushed him through the window and then closed it. “That'll bedevil them!” chuckled Am- bros. ‘I moved your horse out this side. Here they come!” We retreated as torches swept around the corner. ‘Under the second winder!” yelled a man. Ganner snatched a torch and swung it close to the ground. “You fools,”’ he thundered, dashing the blazing torch full into the face of the fellow who had brought him on the useless errand. COmiclbook CO