Adventure Magazine Cover — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

Red Mist missing thread was the date set for the uprising. The signal was to be sent from beyond Tangiers to the Algerian confederates by a political agent in the native employ—a man named Carl Muller. He was coming on the little ship Adria, owned by the Hun- garian company of that name. He would stop at the Hétel des Fleurs, an old-fash- ioned hostelry tucked away between the old and new towns, frequented by traveling merchants and the better class of natives. It was, as well, a political center. At the H6tel des Fleurs, therefore, Holbrooke took up his residence. To the hotel he went directly after his morning ride to resume his watch for Muller. eae LHAT night as he sat on the ter- race before dining, the head clerk ‘ * stepped jauntily down the narrow aisles of green tiling and paused beside him. ‘“‘A telegram for monsieur.”’ Holbrooke glanced up, took the telegram, waited until the clerk had wheeled upon his high-heeled little boots, then read his message: Muller via Adria Friday night.—X. A look of deep satisfaction and relief swept the American’s face. His last duty as political agent in the employ of the French Consulate was to be crowned with success. His fellow agents along the line had done their work well. Muller would reach the Hétel des Fleurs unmolested, un- suspecting. But into the white-walled house behind the Street of the Perfumers where his confederates awaited him, he would never enter. In the offices of the Palais Consulaire officials awaited MHol- brooke’s signal. Muller’s arrest would take place quietly, without scandal. And then? A year’s respite—absolute freedom from responsibility, a metamor- phosis from the tireless unraveler of con- spiracies into the aimless globe-trotter, the idler whose answer to the call of duty is ever the same. He little knew that before the evening was over he should thrust that dream of idleness from him with contempt. Another mystery would beckon him, more fascinating than the making or breaking of empire. A girl with steady gray eyes and gold hair was, without warning, to enter his house of imagination, her presence 787 filling every room, admitting of no other occupant. Holbrooke looked up from his telegram and with idle eyes watched the clerk trot down the green tiling again. Suddenly their glance veered, became concentrated, alert. A woman was walking leisurely across the terrace alone. She wore a dinner- gown of pure white. The sleeves were long, the neck high. Her hair, a crown of pale gold, was dressed in the prevailing fashion, coiled in soft, loose braids over the low forehead. Her eyes were gray, with straight lashes and thick, delicately lined brows. A jasmine blossom lay within the lace folds at her neck. Holbrooke’s first thought was that the girl and the blossom were symbolically expressive of the same won- der—a perfect, unstained purity. For the rest of his life they were always to be asso- ciated thus. Whenever he looked upon exquisite womanhood or saw a white jas- mine blossom it would be a reminder of that Algerian night when he first saw them together, lying one against the other like the close-folded wings of a dove. This, his first impression. She drew nearer, easily within range of recognition. Then Holbrooke’s gaze be- came a stare. Impulsively he leaned forward, then slid back into his chair. It was the girl he had met on the El-Biar road, walking with the Spahi! He felt an absurd impulse-to rise, as though a friend were approaching. She was close by, passing him within a yard. For an instant their eyes met. Then she looked straight before her and passed him without a flicker of recognition! He waited until she reached the dining- salon entrance, then rose and went deliber- ately to the visitor’s book. Six new names were entered. All save one were of his own sex. The exception read: ‘Sibyl Pellam, New York, N. Y., U. S. A.” The same intuition which told him that the girl who passed him a moment before had con- sciously ignored him also told him that she and Sibyl Pellam were one and the same. He felt an almost irresistible desire to go directly to the dining-salon and seek her out, although his duty lay in the direc- tion of the Consulate offices to inform the officials of his telegram. For an instant he hesitated, mentally arguing to himself that it was only Thurs- day night, that a whole day lay between cComicbook CO