Adventure Magazine Cover — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

160 to be given away and sweets made of grapes and flour and butter. I have not eaten for two days.” This was strictly true. Michael’s tone was that of the hopeless slave addressing his guards. The sentry sneered and ran his hand under Michael’s cloak to make sure that he held no weapon, and then fell to cursing his own fate that kept him from the feasting. Michael made off. At the river-gate of the town he was confronted by the head of a Mongol— one of the envoys from Tamerlane— caked with dried blood, stuck upright upon a spear. The crowd of soldiery and towns- people surging through the gate paused to spit at the wax-like features and to heap insults on the Tatars. Michael was carried in with the throng, but now his eyes held a new light and his lips were hard with purpose. He knew for the first time the certainty of conflict between the sultan and the khan. At the river’s edge, up-stream, he had bought his new cloak with a few silver- pieces and the cap to match. He had cast away his sword to carry out his character of freed galley-slave. Now Michael was among the alleys of Angora over which the crescent standard hung. He glanced indifferently at the lighted balconies where costly rugs were hung and at the magic-lantern pictures that Arabs were displaying in darkened corners. He heard the distant chant of fanatical imams, exorting the Moslems in the mosques. Asking his way from a drunken Sipahi, he approached the walled gardens where Bayezid and his court held feast. The heat grew instead of lessening that night. The glimmer of heat-lightning more than once darkened the gleam of the stars. This the wmams, crying from balcony and courtyard, announced as a good omen. “The Thunderbolt will strike!’ they said. ‘““The world trembles.” The heat impelled Bayezid and his divan —the councilors who feasted with him—to leave the torrid rooms of the house where they were guarded by a double line of Ottoman infantry and to seek the gardens where an artificial lake shaded by cypresses offered moderate comfort. On this lake was a floating kiosk of teak- wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, its roof fragrant with flowers, with curtains drawn back to allow free passage to the air. Adventure Bayezid, flushed with the stimulus of bhang and opium, lay back on his cushions, idly watching the play of torch-light re- flected in the lake. The grandees were intent on a spectacle of women and boys who danced in iridescent garments of mo- ghrebin and chrysoliths at the edge of the garden by the kiosk. These feasts had been ordered by Baye- zid, who felt himself at the summit of his power. Now he surveyed the splendor around him through half-closed eyes. “We will make a welcome,” he mur- mured, “for the Tatar boor. News has come to me that he advances with his power upon the Khabur.”’ They nodded assent—sheikh, malik and caliph. ‘“‘When he comes to the Khabur,” went on Bayezid, “I will have a hunt declared. My troops will aid me in the pursuit of game. That will show the Tatar how much we esteem him.” Some of the councilors looked more than a little startled. It was no light thing to hunt game in the presence of Tamerlane’s army. And Bayezid had ordered the Mon- gol envoys slain, wantonly, as it seemed. The man who was called the Thunder- bolt turned sleepy eyes to the dark face of the Sheikh of Rum, in whose country they were encamped. ‘“‘Give orders for ten thousand beaters to be mustered from the town. It is my will.” The official prostrated himself and mut- tered: “Tamerlane has forty thousand infantry and twice that number. of riders, O Guar- dian of the Faith. Will you pursue the beasts of the field when such a host stands across the river?” He plucked up courage from the sultan’s silence. ‘‘Bethink you, Star of the East, there is but one cloud upon the face of your sky—Tamerlane. You have gained the Danube; Constantinople will be yours as Greece is now—then the rest of Frankistan. And, when Tamer- lane falls, Iran, Tatary and India——” “Sheikh,” Bayezid smiled, “have you forgotten my spies in the Tatar camp?” Ke by the sultan that they should 2: mock Tamerlane. Festival was to be held in the town, even when the Tatar horsemen occupied the opposite bank of the Khabur, The bulk of the Seljuke knights— IN THIS manner was it ordained oO Eomichbooks: co