Adventure Magazine Cover — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

590 All torches were lifted, all heads looked up in astonishment. He pointed and waved vehemently, and summoned a scrap of their language to his tongue: “Lennemi!l Vennemil La—la!”’ Rapidly the burghers lined the parapet. Those outside who had expected a secret ally to beckon from the breach were con- fronted by defenders. Stealth and silence were of no further avail; the Savoyards up- sprang. The harquebusade began. zy has become matter of history. Wide- spread in all Protestant countries has been the bitter tale of that night surprise, treacherously planned in the midst of pro- claimed peace. And all who heard of it know how nigh the vile plan came to frui- tion; how narrow, for one panting hour, re- mained the margin between victorious re- pulse and annihilation; what nameless orgies of blood, lust and rapine were, by the Duke’s explicit orders, to follow on the shout of “‘ The city 1s taken.’’ Once indeed that cry of terror was act- ually raised, to strike ice-cold to many an innocent heart. And no doubt it would have been justified, had all the concerted measures of assailants without and confed- erates within come to their expected issue —of which the most pregnant was the blow- ing up of the forgotten little postern under the Bastion de l’Oye! But as yet Dick Wyatt knew naught of all this. Toward the fourth hour of the morn- ing when the last gun on the south walls had vomited its last shot at the retreating enemy; when the Savoyard army had van- ished into the darkness whence it had sprung, the young man, sitting on a heap of rubbish, exhausted, dazed with fight, had not yet plumbed the mystery of the night’s monstrous doings. He had had a glut of sword work; not, indeed, of the subtle fencing tricks of his dreams, but of furious strokes, by mere fighting man’s instinct, all in the light of nature; here falling on morion or corselet, there roughly warding a push of pike. The struggle was over; but about him turmoil was still seething. The whole town was in the street, yet in the midst of the throng he was in solitude. Each in the crowd was moved to exultation or thanks- giving, to lament or solicitude for friend and kin; but he had no friend among them; none thought of dropping him a word of kindness. THE story of the escalade of Geneva Adventure | By the light of one of those street fires that had been kindled wherever possible until the opening of the blessed eye of day, he was sul- lenly attending to sundry slight wounds that now had begun to stiffen and smart. A morose depression gathered upon him. A hand was clapped on his shoulder: “Why, Dick Wyatt! Hast also come to Geneva?” He had not heard the beloved tongue from a true English mouth these weary months. His heart leaped. He sprang up. Oh, marvel! No less a man than Master Beckett! Master Beckett torn in attire and powder-stained; mocking, yet with a tender gleam in the eye. Their hands met. ‘“T have looked for thee, Dick, among the dead, the maimed, and the sound, and here art thou at last!” ‘““How now—yet you knew me not here?”’ ‘‘Nay, an hour ago I never dreamed of Dick Wyatt. But down yonder, at the Tertasse Gate, where the croaking frogs were made at last to choose between jump the wall again or take our steel, there was one burgher—a tall man, by the mass, but yet he owed some- thing to the timely help of my rapier. ‘Grand mercy!’ saith he. ‘You English are rude escrimeurs’ (thus they call a fencer, Dick); ‘we left one on the Bastion de l’Oye. He hath little French, but he drummed right heartily on the black harness of the Savoy- ard.” ‘An Englishman?’ says I. And there being no more work to do I looked for him who had little French lest he want succor or friendly word, but never thinking of thee! What make you from Lombard Street, Dick Wyatt?” “Aye—and what make you in Geneva from the Temple, Master Beckett?”’ The retort was made smiling. Gone was melancholy; gone, too, was the rivalry that had burned sore in each heart against the other. They stood, eye in eye. Presently they both laughed; the same thought was in their minds. “So! In truth they did speak of another Englishman,” said Dick. “FP hey’ spoke, say’st thou? Who spoke?” “In Todescan’s fence-room,” said Wyatt gravely. Master Beckett mused a moment. “When came you to Geneva, friend Dick?” he asked. “Vesterday, at nightfall.” A great astonishment writ itself upon the Templar’s countenance. COMICLOOCkKKS. GO 5}