Adventure Magazine Cover — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

16 English say. The caravans are strongly guarded. You might cut one up, but then you would be hunted down : “We do not look for pickings from the traders.”’ “What, then? ’Tis folly for thirty and five to draw sword against the pasha of Asia.” ‘“‘True, if we were an army. But we are five and thirty, and we will fight with the heels of our horses.”’ ‘You can not carry off gold pieces that way.” ‘“‘Aye, if we put them first in our saddle- bags.”’ Demid rose, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. “It would be folly to sit in one place where the eyes of the Moslems are upon us.”’ He put his finger on the hilt of the Irish- man’s rapier. ‘You can use that. How would you thrust against a shrewder swords- man? Openly, at his throat?” “Not so.”” Sir Michael smiled. ‘I would use my blade clumsily at first—as you did— and pass it under his guard when he struck.” Springing to his feet, he let ‘his glance rove over the white sea of the snow-bound prairie, the glittering ribbon of the river, and the gray murk that hid the horizon on every hand, as if a shroud had been drawn around that particular spot on the earth. The loneliness of the vast spaces penetrated the spirit of the Irishman like a cold wind that could not be evaded, turn where he would. To tell the truth, Sir Michael had no joy of this steppe that dwarfed the moors of his homeland, and he yearned for the fellow- ship of men. Demid, towering over him, with arms knotted ona placid chest that hardly seemed to breathe, was at home here. The dark eyes of the young Cossack saw not the deso- lation of the prairie over which a raven circled on slow wings. His mind’s eye saw the tall grass of the steppe under the warm sun, the smoke rising from wicker cottages by the beds of streams—a horse plunging, into a covert whither a stag had started up, and the rider of the horse shouting in exulta- tion of the hunt. He saw children playing by sleeping cattle, their ears attuned to the ceaseless murmur of the wind upon the prairle—— “T will go with you,” said Sir Michae! abruptly. “But I serve myself.” Adventure Demid nodded, pleased. He had added to his small company a rare swordsman. ‘“‘We bid you to our bread and salt,’’ he accepted, gravely, the companionship of the other, and returned to Sir Michael his pass- port, remarking that it were better burned. But the cavalier, being anxious to have a reckoning with his erstwhile dragoman, for- got about it. He found, on returning to the camp, that Giorgos was gone. When he asked Ayub how this had happened, the giant pointed to the hole that had been cut in the ice, adding that there was one spy the less in the world. IV AYUB CASTS A NET = AD is he, the Falcon—aye, and yon- der his mate is mad.” So said Captain Balaban, whispering under his twisted lip as he watched Michael Rohan casting dice, one hand against the other. Michael shaded his eyes to look down upon the strip of beach and the dark line of the Black Sea. eee The Cossack detachment had arrived at the shore and quartered itself upon a Tatar fishing village on the sheltered side of a long headland that stretched like a giant’s finger out into the waters. The score of natives who lived on the neck of land had been rounded up and placed in the care of Tog- rukh, the essaul, who counted them promptly and let them understand that if one were found missing from the village the rest would be wrapped up in the great fishing-nets of twisted hemp weighted with stones, and dropped into the sea. “I can read the signs in the sky,” went on Balaban, who had discovered that Michael understood much Turki and could speak some. ‘When we rode at the heels of the Cossacks through the snow wilder- ness, spirits howled in our wake.” He glanced sidewise at Demid who sat near them, apparently asleep, his back against a side of a hut, his sword across his knees. The Cossack chief understood Bala- ban perfectly, and knew that the howling had been from bands of Tatars who had hit upon their trail at times and pursued, with- out coming up with the swift-moving war- riors. The first stage of the journey had been made safely. “Aye,” resumed Balaban, ‘‘on horses the ’ oO Comicloooks (©