Adventure Magazine Cover — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

Viet f we? « ‘¢; The Grand Cham IX THE RAVINE HERE is a subtle intoxicant of fear in the hurry of many persons to be the first to reach a point of safety. The trot of the horses broke at. times into a gallop. Some of the stores fell from the packs. Soranzi alternately cried upon God to wit- ness the loss of valuable goods and prayed for greater haste. The sun was obscured, a thin mist veiled the pine-thickets and the stretches of sandy ground on either hand. The heat wilted their strength. Rudolfo turned many times, apparently thinking to throw pursuers off their track, but the track of a score of horses could not be concealed, Michael knew. As evening closed in they were threading through gorges that hastened the coming of darkness. Often they looked back in the failing light. No one desired to be last. And then Rudolfo, in the lead, halted abruptly. Before them in the twilight stood a great mound of human skulls, “Tis the Sign o’ the Skull,’ muttered Bembo, ‘‘where we will sleep the night.” The jester voiced the fear that had come upon the party with the evening. Clavijo had ordered a huge fire to be lighted near the mound of human bones, and the ruddy glare of the flames shone upon a hundred grinning masks that had been men. Nor was it any chance collection of skeletons piled together on a battle-field. The pyra- mid of skulls was regular in shape and no body-bones were visible. The lighting of the fire brought night upon them with a rush, down the black bulk of the mountain-slopes and the mouths of the rock gullies that opened into the gorge on either side. Instinctively the men kept close to the blaze and they ate little dinner although they had fasted since morning. Michael sat apart under guard of a sentry and without food. By Rudolfo’s orders he had been bound hand and foot and only the unexpected sight of the monu- ment of skulls had delayed the torture that was preparing at Gian’s hands. Sight of the pyramid told Michael some- thing unknown to the others and only guessed by ‘Rudolfo. The condottiere had lost his way. ; a I51 During the panicky run of the afternoon when the sun was invisible behind clouds, Rudolfo unwittingly had doubled again on his course. Whereas Clavijo had started them north that morning; since then they had been circling blindly to the south and east. And they had penetrated to the éerra incognita—the gateway of the unknown land about which Clavijo had babbled. And to the place that Michael had known as the Gate of Shadows, where the five Christians had been buried. It was a rare jest, thought Michael. Rudolfo was entering the place he had tried to shun, whither Michael had intended to lead him—and Clavijo, the liar, had be- held reality. He heard a footfall behind him in the gloom and turned his head cautiously, for it was not the sentry’s step. The soldier had moved off a score of paces toward the fire and stood leaning on a spear, his back toward Michael. A foot from his eyes Michael made out the glimmer of steel in the faint light, and stiffened. A cloaked form took shape be- hind the dagger—a figure bent and stealthy. The knife was thrust forward even as Michael saw it, and its edge sliced away the bonds at his wrists. Next, food on a wooden platter was placed in his cramped hands. “Eat, for love of San Marco,” breathed a trembling voice. “Brave Master Bearn, worthy captain, harken but do not turn your head. I have given to the sentry—a murrain on his greed—a whole purse of good silver dinart, that he be blind and deaf for a short moment.” It was Soranzi and a terrified Soranzi. Michael, as he munched the meat, reflected that Rudolfo’s men were capable of taking a leaf from their master’s book in selling their services. “Pietro Rudolfo has dropped his mask with me,” began the Venetian swiftly. ““Alack! You spoke the truth this noon. I am _ ruined—beggared! He holds me captive and will take my goods—aye, every packet and bale. Every soldt’s worth.” He wrung his hands and plucked at his thin beard viciously. “Once in Trebizond again, under the weak rule of the Comneni, Rudolfo claims all my store and the fine presents for the Cham as his, as payment for saving our Eomichbookszco