Adventure Magazine Cover — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

He that Prepareth the Way of the Tetino landscape on market-days. Mules and bullocks were the only automo- biles to be had in Livady; there was scarcely one horse in the whole village. The mountainside was dotted with smo- king charcoal-hills that looked at night like a hundred monstrous slumbering fireflies. Charred, as it were, for ages, all physiogno- mies had gloomed. From tanned youth one graduated to tawny manhood before attaining to that midnight ebony that marked the neck of the charcoal patriarch. A foggy, glum, sullen day it was. The city merchant, wrapped in furs, with a shawl around his ears in regular Tetino fash- ion, nodded sociably at each peasant he met pacing the muddy road beside his mule, and, cursing the weather by all the saints in the Greek calendar, stopped his horse every little while to chat with some of the char- coalmen that looked more intelligent. The unsuspecting way in which the peasants answered his inquiries about Livady and recent church doings in the village, assured Selim Effendi of the complete success of his disguise. His man Osman, also on horse- back, played his part of zaptieh-servant irre- proachably. Another half-hour’s ride brought the two men to the main street of Livady, in front of the village livery-stable and within shout- ing distance of Stanko’s Inn. Selim Effendi dismounted. ‘Now, Osman,” he turned to the zaptieh, ‘here is your chance. If we catch that ras- cal, you'll be an duzbasht in a week, with enough gold jingling in your pockets to make anybody dance to your music. Three elbow- lengths tall, Osman, and as for girth, neither a grasshopper nor a hog. Gray eyes, dark hair; had French tailored clothes when last seen in Salonica, the time when he fooled Azni Pasha’s entire police force. But no one outside the revolutionary organization knows exactly how the Apostle looks. So keep your eyes open for a priest’s cassock and a flowing beard—those are his own words, Osman: “Of a priest’s cassock and a flowing beard, Nor Turk nor Moslem ever is afeared! “T’ll be on the watch for him at the Inn. But you sort of look after the horses, like a real zaptieh-servant, and scan the face of each that passes down the street.”’ And then, turning toward the café bar- ber shop in Stanko’s courtyard, he yelled at the zaptieh in regular city-merchant style: 693 ‘Don’t you let my horse starve, either, do you hear? Give him plenty of oats, and have him ready to start back in a couple of hours. I must be back in Tetino by sun- down. And come over to Stanko’s by-and- by; I may need you. Wake up, you flat- footed zany! Why are you staring at me like an ox at a painted door?”’ Stanko’s was not a pretentious café even for a village of Livady’s size. A squar- ish box of brick and pine boards in front of the inn proper, it might have reminded one of a gateman’s lodge at a Salonica palace. One side was given over to Stanko’s coffee- place and bar-counter combined, and be- hind it was a door connecting with a sleep- ing-room for the innkeeper and his help. The corner on the other side of Stanko’s bar was occupied by the barber-shop end of the establishment. An old armchair, with the back sawed off and hinged to the seat, the top part being attached to a rope which could be pulled and regulated by means of a pulley fastened to the wall, served just as well as a Salonica leather-covered, hy- draulic-power contraption; and, if the mirror was fly-specked, the razor at least was never dull and there was always lather enough on hand to shave a grizzly. Some sentimental chromos of French or Italian descent, pasted on the walls, lent some color to the whitewashed interior, and in one corner an ikon of St. George killing the Dragon added the finishing touch of art. Cigarette-box etiquettes were glued in rows over the smoking divan, and on the low tab- ourets in front were earthen ash-trays, boxes of matches and empty wine-bottles. A mangal piled high with charcoal glowed in the center of the shop, and its sparks were a welcome sight on such an afternoon. Stanko, the innkeeper, was tending his coffee-pot by the fire, and greeted the fur- clad city merchant with the typical village cafejv’s bow ‘““St. Demeter bless your liver this after- noon, traveler; may you stay here long and like it!” “Your Livady is colder than ice to-day,” Selim grumbled by way of response. ‘Get me a hot brandy and some Prespa wine; I am three-quarters frozen.” “Stanko keeps no traveler waiting; so help me St. Petka, you shall have it allina twinkle!”’ and the innkeeper stepped down through the trap-door to where he kept his liquors. COMMICLOCKKS. EGO