Adventure Magazine Cover — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

902 wees 41 HEY were placed side by side upon a the snow. Gresham inspected them gravely. They blinked up at him with sullen, frightened eyes. They poured out torrents of appeal and explanation. With the satisfied affability of colleagues who have dealt with a situation in com- plete accord and with full success, Vilip and the Albanian shared a single match to light twin cigarettes. | “T doubt if there is any object in—in keeping them, Excellency,’ said the latter indifferently. “In their present mood they would say anything, and implicate any- body.” Gresham showed surprise. “You would release them—you would not bring them to justice?” he cried. Jovan laughed grimly. “Justice?” He made a gesture of contempt. ‘“‘Here our justice is administered by the master of these men—the man who has used them to set this trap—whose rewards they hoped to gain by springing it! Is it to Esuli Bey that you would bring your complaint against them, signor?”’ ‘The Bey? He is responsible for this?” Gresham’s volce was resonant with sur- prise. Jovan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who else, signor? They are zaptiehs—men of his guard and used for all or any of his pur- poses. What wisdom would there be in bringing them to hime” Gresham looked at Agnew. ‘The engi- neer made a gesture of careless acqules- - cence. “True, most probably,” he agreed. “It is all part of the same state of—of war in which we find ourselves.” Gresham hesitated. ‘But that being so, to—to release them, as you suggest? Is not that beyond all reason?”’ Jovan lifted up his head and laughed again—loudly, savagely, the echoes mag- nifying the sound and the cruel cadence. He whipped a revolver from his belt and cocked it. ‘“‘T would release them—thus!”’ he cried, turning to the captive pair with menacing deliberation. The men screamed and struggled fran- tically. And at the same time Agnew’s hand fell upon the Albanian’s arm. But the two frenzied prisoners either did not see or did not recognize his merciful intention. They twisted themselves round, they collided with each other in their agony Adventure of desperation. One, the one nearest the cliff-head, began to slide upon the glazed surface. He shrieked. Shackled as he was at wrist and ankle, he gripped at his com- rade’s torn tunic with his teeth. He merely completed the disaster. The other began to slide in his turn—brought the impact of his weight upon the already moving body. Both yelled despairingly, hideously. Agnew released his grip upon Jovan’s arm and made an impetuous dash at the human avalanche. Vilip gave a warning cry, snatched at a crevice with one hand and with the other found and maintained purchase on the engineer’s collar. Agnew, clutching unavailingly at the ice-smooth surface, sprawled at full length, supported by Vilip’s grasp alone. He saw the two prisoners add speed to speed, and then, seized with sudden nausea, he averted his eyes. But his ears were open, and the despair of the last cry which reached him rang in them for many a day. That, and the cruel cadence of Jovan’s laugh. For as the two bodies flashed out from the cliff-edge into the abyss the Albanian laughed for the third time—cheerfully, amiably, with the whole-hearted satisfac- tion of one whose sense of the ridiculous has been amply fed. “Your Excellency’s pardon!” he cried. “After all and in spite of your Excellency’s objection, they have found—release!”’ CHAPTER XVIII A STAB IN THE BACK rT BE rays of the westering sun lit the interior of Mr. Gresham’s frame hut on the Vodra embankment, lit the open square of trampled mud, lit most effectively the waving masses of hair that crowned Katrine’s forehead and fell, in a light foam of ringlets, to the level of her eyes. And these last were bent earnestly on a cable- form which lay upon the table before her. She frowned. At the sound of a footstep she looked up through the open door and her face showed relief. It was her father who was coming toward her. She handed him the paper. it—not knowing what answer might be re- quired,”’ she explained. ‘I am no wiser for having read it. What does Gordon mean?” C© ae | opened MICLOOKS (©