Adventure, December 1914 — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

188 fumbled in my pockets for pencil and paper, but the several searchings to which I had been subjected had denuded me of every- thing except an indelible pencil and the tiny handkerchief that Masoya had given me for exactly such a purpose. The moon was behind a bank of clouds, but a faint silvery light diminished the darkness so that I was able to scrawl slow- ly across the white surface of the handker- chief, spread on my knee, these words: Help. DAN. Then I folded the handkerchief and tied it inside Stoyan’s collar, under his shaggy throat. He watched me attentively while I worked, and when the handkerchief had been adjusted, I took his head in my hands and looked into his big luminous eyes. ‘Take it to Masoya,” I ordered, patting tthe handkerchief. “Find your mistress, Stoyan. Go.” | He whined and licked my hand, and five seconds later I could not have told in which direction he had disappeared. He padded off into the shadows silently as a wolf. Cholera camp. San Stefano. CHAPTER XVI THE HEART OF AN ADVENTURESS é ATER! For the love of Allah! Water!” This was the cry with which the stockade greeted the morning sun. From every part of the vale of misery the cry rose to heaven —and was not heard. Fetid wrecks of men staggered toward the dead-line with hands outstretched, only to be repulsed by the hoarse warnings of the sentinels. A little water, only a little water, they begged. It was not much to ask. In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Mer- ciful But Allah does not breed com- passion or mercy in the breasts of men who believe in him, and the most touching pleas were ignored. By this time I was near mad with thirst myself. My tongue, thick and blackened, projected between my cracked lips. I looked at the chunk of black bread I had saved from my supper and knew that it would be hopeless even to try to force it down my throat. I must have water. Heavens! How I longed for water—a drop, a trickle, barely enough to moisten my fevered lips. Adventure The temporary exhilaration caused by the knowledge that Stoyan would carry my message to Masoya was speedily dissipated by this suffering. Again I was overcome with the feeling of despondency that had almost prompted me to throw myself at the stockade the night before and force the sentinels to fire on me. But the lapse into light-headedness which this brought about was succeeded by a feeling of desperation. No, I would not commit suicide, I resolved. But I would leave no stone unturned to compel my comfort. I would make the guards give me food and drink. So I set out, unsteadily, but determined, toward the gate. Fortunately there was no rule against an inmate approaching the gate after due signal, and I soon found my- self looking through the bars at the officer who had admitted me the day before—a dignified old Turk with a full gray beard, one of the Hamidian officers who had been relegated to the background of affairs when the Young Turks came into power. “Well?” he asked, not unkindly. I pointed to my tongue. “Water!” I gasped, barely able to articu- late with my stiffened lips. He shrugged his shoulders, although there was a glint of compassion in his eyes, I thought. “TI can not help that, friend,” he returned. ‘“‘A greater than I has ordered the disposi- tions to be made with cholera patients, and it is strictly ordered that there shall be no intercourse between the patients and the guards. Later, I have no doubt that the commissariat will send water and bread. But in the meantime there are strong men to be fed, and the dying must wait.” “But I am not dying,’ I gasped. “TI have no cholera.” He looked at me keenly. “Will you swear that by Allah and the Prophet’s beard?’’ he demanded. “T am not a Moslem,” I answered, ‘‘but I will swear by my own God.” “Oh, the God of the Christians?” he said, more readily. eV eg.”? “Well, if you are a Frank your word will be enough,” he said. ‘‘Franks keep their word, I have found.”’ He looked around him. Nobody was in sight. Even the sentinel regularly stationed before the gate had marched around one corner of the guardhouse. cComiclbooolk< C©