Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 192: what you’re looking at

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

1138 Court—the Starks were richer then and lived there—and saw me. He was always wicked. He was wicked then although he was little more than a boy. He had Just left the military college. He wanted to be my companion. I laughed at him. But I sometimes allowed him to walk across the heather with me. He had a camera and took my p.cture, and showed me how to take his. He put the two pictures into a littie locket and gave it to me. “But in the end—one day—he was in- sulting and my true companion came out from behind a heather clump like a swift snake and beat him. I had not known Boy Lovell to be in the forest at ail. I thought him to be with the tents in Gloucester. He beat Stark terribly—as he deserved—when two foresters saw and came up. They held Boy Lovell and Stark looked at him like an animal before he spoke. Then he pointed to a pheasant which Boy Lovell had flung down when he came out from the heather and swore that, because he had discovered him taking a pheasant from a snare and had remonstrated, Boy Lovell had tried to murder him. ““They found snares on Boy Lovell, of course—a Gipsy must live—and took him to prison. Ah, but how Stark lied! His people were important and powerful in the forest then and Boy Lovell was only a Gipsy. They sent him to prison for five years, and because I and my father tried to help him, to speak well for him, my father was dismissed and a new snake-catcher came. “So we left the forest and went into a town. I welcomed that, for to be in the forest when my boy was in prison hurt me so. He died soon. He loved the forest—he had never slept under a roof—he loved the forest and he loved me. But they did not understand his spirit. One week in prison was to him more than five years would be to many men. They kept him there inside the walls. He could not come to the forest and to me, and so he died—my boy, my c.m- panion of the forest, who had been so kind to me—who had been so gay!” The Princess paused fora moment. The forest was all gray now, and under the firs it was full of shadow. The lights in the eyes of the wolves were plainer and all the brutes were standing up, their heads hung low. The Princess had forgotten them, I think. “In the town we nearly starved until the snake-woman of a traveling menagerie was Adventure killed by a cobra from which the fangs had not been removed. I heard two men talking of it and I hurried to the menagerie, hungry, eager, poor little wretch that I must have been, and begged them to let me be snake- woman instead. I did not fear the snakes —a snake-catcher’s daugher who had han- died vipers. They listened, and so I be- came the snake-girl and wandered with the caravans. “But I despised the snakes and learned to understand the animals—the wolves, the leopards, the lions, and presently became a ‘Lion Queen.’ Oh, but what a ‘Queen’! And after a few years I grew famous in my way. It was because I was not afraid. I was never afraid after I knew my com- panion was dead. “fSo I drifted to the Continent, in time to Vienna, performing with leopards and lions and my wolves. I kept the locket with the picture of the man who had killed Boy Lovell with lies. In Vienna Prince Ko- morzekovna saw me and fell in love with me. Ido not think I loved him, but he was so kind and urged me so, and I married him. It made the Prince happy and I was not unhappy. “At the end of three years he died, and I came home. I heard that the Starks had become poor, and I took No-Man’s Court. I had never forgotten to hate Stark—he was a Major now—and I wanted to avenge Boy Lovell. My heart was quite empty then. I thought that if I could meet Stark again I could make him suffer. I hoped to lure him. I was rich and he was poor and greedy. Oh, I had agents who found out many things about him. I had grown beautiful, and he always pursued a beautiful woman. So I took his house—he did not know me, of course—and waited to see what would happen. Then you, my neighbor, came to sce me——” her voice faltered and the wolves stirred uneasily “—and—and my heart was no longer empty.” I heard a muffled inarticulate cry from -Torrance and he stepped forward to her. The wolves rumbled softly in their throats. The Princess signed to him to stand still and listen. fy “I WAS happy with you in the Ste: h) forest. Then Stark came, and he peete? loved me, he said. I think he be- lieved he spoke the truth. At least he loved my money. He did not remember Mary cComicbook CO