Adventure Magazine Cover — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

He that Prepareth the Way hy) Radoslav A.Tsanoft HE Apostle was what the peo- ple were calling Father Boyan, the comitajt who had abandoned his little church and his fat deaconry in Vodena, to muddle the swine- herds and charcoalmen with his notions of Human Rights and Freedom. A gospel of fire and sword he was preaching through- out Macedonia, and he had so far managed to eel his way through all the nets of the Turkish police. The standing reward of 1000 pounds, offered by the Sublime Porte for his head had been accumulating inter- est at the Ottoman Bank for the past twen- ty-five months. The rascal was well-nigh ubiquitous. Every one knew of him, but somehow or other nobody seemed to know him. But news does leak out in spite of the best precautions. Somebody had blabbed, and Enver Pasha of Tetino had it on reliable information that the Macedono-Adrian- opolitan Revolutionary Committee was planning a Winter congress to be held some time in January for the purpose of deciding upon the advisability of an early Spring uprising. How it reached the ears of the police no one perhaps will ever know def- initely; but Enver Pasha’s entire machinery of sentries and spies was set in motion, and 691 the thousand-fingered hand of the Ottoman police reached out ravenously for the master organizer, who was said to be preparing to begin the canvass of the Tetino district. Rumors had it even that he was hiding in the city that identical third week of November. Late Sunday night, November 2oth, Enver Pasha’s chief assistant, Selim Ef- fendi, otherwise known in Tetino as ‘The Tipsy Bloodhound,” saw a_ suspicious- looking peasant attempting to cross the cordon of police that girdled the city. With the assistance of his zaptieh, Osman, Selim Effendi overpowered the peasant, tied and gagged him. A search of his clothes made Selim the possessor of the following message, hand-printed in good Bulgarian: To ROBESPIERRE IN PoLIANy:—From the Den of Lions, Greeting! He that Prepareth the Way will gurgle over a cup of coffee in Stanko’s Inn in Livady village on Tuesday afternoon next, to meet you for obvious reasons, with tidings from the Great on High. ‘‘Of a priest’s cassock anda flowing beard, Nor Turk nor Moslem ever is afeared!” To Selim Effendi the meaning was plain. What conceited idiot in Poliany had as- sumed the revolutionary pseudonym of ‘‘Robespierre”’ Selim knew little and cared COMICLOOokkS.CO©