Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

32 From two of the wagons long segments of tree-trunk projected like battering-rams, which indeed they were. The men who pushed these strange engines forward were well protected by the carts themselves and by the slant of the hill. Nevertheless, the archers to the rear kept up a steady stream of arrows, which pattered just inside the parapet, forcing the garri- son to keep well back, where they could not see to hurl down javelins. Sir Giles gazed down through the slit in his wooden pavis. 7 ‘Well schemed!”’ he cried in admiration. ““Ho, Raimond! Were you afraid last night? Did it irk you to wait all through the dark hours?” “Not I, my lord,” the young officer an- swered stoutly. ‘‘We ate and drank.” “Even so. De Born postponed his as- sault that we might be tortured by the fear of that which came not. He sought to wear down our nerves. Therefore I gave orders that ye eat between watches. And lo your nerves troubled you not! Tubes, there!”’ The protected carts were now close to the wall, the two with battering-rams being placed in the center. Through the hang- ings in front of a third a spear-point thrust glinting in the sun. “As I thought.” Gislac narrowed his eyes at the advance. “When you two have made a breach, the rest will vomit forth their spawn like bees to force an entry for the host. Aim me a tube at the ram yonder, Bermond—the one with the trunk that swings. ‘Touch her where trunk meets curtain.” The cart at which he pointed was just coming into action, its long ram swinging about through an orifice in the hide curtain. At first apparently aimless, its movement soon became fixed. Many hands in the screened body of the cart urged it forward. With mighty force it struck full against a single stone in one of the lower courses of the wall. There was a shower of rock-dust, for the trunk was shod with iron. Once more the trunk slid back, swung and balanced for its second stroke. Of asudden a sheet of flame spat from the battlements, seeming to flare out wider and wider as it shot toward the cart. Then with a crack- ling roar it flung itself about the inward end of the trunk, about the curtain of hides, about the very roof of the wagon. Some one laughed within the cart, laughed Adventure at the futility of attempting to burn wood that was wrapped in green hides. Against this very thing had de Born prepared those hides. But the laugh died even as it was born. From within the cart came quick gasps from throats that choked for breath, came cries of fierce pain as the flames ate in through green hides, through boards, through mail that scorched the flesh as it heated. Grimly Bermond drew back from the crenelations one of the strange objects he had placed there and shot another into its place. They were long tubes of copper, about four inches each in bore, tapering from butt to muzzle. Applying a match of tarred flax to the open butt and instantly closing it with a copper plug, he pointed the muzzle toward the second battering-ram, while his helpers directed a third and a fourth tube against other carts. From each tube flashed a sheet of fire like that which had sprung from the first, puffing out into a pear-shaped mass of flame as it reached the outer air, soaring straight down upon the doomed wagons. As they felt its hot touch, the wagons burst into fierce con- flagration. Shrieks of pain and horror is- sued from them. The blazing curtains bel- lied and parted before the blows of desper- ately wielded blades. Their mail glowing red-hot, their garments aflame, the luckless soldiers concealed within leaped from the carts. As they fell, they were riddled with darts and arrows from the wall, for the archers who should have supported the attack, sick with horror and aghast with the fear of witch- craft, had flung down their bows and fled to the rear. In a few moments after the first blast of fire the carts were empty—save for those who had not managed to disentangle themselves from the heavy green hides—and blazing in every plank and rib. A throng of frightened, tortured men pelted back upon the hill, the missiles of High Tower pursuing and striking them down as they ran. After five minutes the attack had died in agony. ‘What are those devil-tubes, my lord, and where learned you of their magic?’ young Raimond asked. Having but recently attached himself to Gislac’s service, he had never seen them be- fore. His face was somewhat white as he asked the question. Gislac himself had become drawn about the lips. “They are evil things,” he answered, “not CoOMmicbhook (©