Adventure Magazine Cover — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

20 Cossacks crouching in the skiff were seen. Pitch torches began to sizzle over their heads. “Mud-fish!”” bellowed Ayub, dropping the tiller and catching up one end of the long net. “Wriggle out of thisif youcan. U-ha!”’ “U-ha!” roared the warriors, springing up. The giant Cossack was swinging a lengt of net over his head. Weighted as it was with stones in the corners, it gained mo- mentum slowly, but soon whistled through the air like one of the lassos of the Cossacks. Michael stepped clear of the other end as Ayub grunted and released the net just when the skiff drifted abreast the low fore- castle of the galley, a spear’s stretch away. The twisted hempen mesh spread out in the air and the stones thumped on the deck as arrows began to flash toward the skiff. Pulling on his end of the net, Ayub drew the boat against the galley’s quarter. Entangled in the mesh, several Moslems struggled to win clear of it. Taken com- pletely by surprize, their efforts only served to draw the strands tighter. As many more—sailors roused from sleep—drew simi- tars and sprang to the rail barely in time to oppose the Cossacks who climbed up aided by the strands of the net, by the beak, and the muzzle of the cannon that gaped at them silently. One pitched into the net on the deck, an arrow through his jaw, but the rest cut down the Moslems before they could flee to the runway leading aft. The sailors caught under the net were despatched at once. Meanwhile torches flared up, and bedlam burst forth in the waist of the ship. The slaves, awakened by the fight, were howling, cursing and praying in a dozen tongues. Lacking time to chain their arms, the Mos- lem wardens who had sprung to the bridge were hewing down the bolder spirits who had stood up. Plying long blades, the guards thrust and cut down into the shad- ows until Ayub sighted them and leaped upon the runway his broadsword gripped in both hands. “Death to the sheep-slayers!” he roared, striding forward. “ The runway, serving as a platform for the overseers, was wide enough for only oné man to wield a weapon, and the first Mos- lem who faced Ayub set his back to the mast around which the bridge ran. The big Cossack swept aside the warden’s steel and hewed back. Biting into the man’s Adventure: ribs, the heavy blade turned down, ground through the spine and sank to the hip bone on the other side. Ce Michael, at Ayub’s shoulder, saw the doomed Moslem actually fall apart, his body dropping over upon the slave’s bench, his legs twisting on the runway. At once the rowers were on their feet, their hairy faces gleaming, their hands straining at the chains that bound their ankles to the deck. Three of the guards now formed abreast on the runway; the two, in the rear thrust their long spears past the center man, who glared at Ayub from behind his round shield. - The prospect of having to deal with three weapons instead of one did not halt Ayub, whose blood was up. Luckily for him the Cossacks on the foredeck used their pistols and the leading Moslem stumbled forward to his knees. Then the broadsword flashed and Michael saw the two remaining guards knocked over the rail of the runway as if the mast had fallen upon them. They fell into the upstretched hands of the slaves, and Michael was glad to look away, toward the poop where a hot fight was in progress. Demid, in his shirt-sleeves, had climbed over the rail of the afterdeck followed by a dozen warriors. Long pistols flashed from behind him, and cleared a space for the Cossacks to set theirfeet. A score of white turbaned janizaries faced them, plying simitar and dagger, while nearly as many under the reis of the galley defended the other rail against Togrukh and his men. As more of the Moslem swordsmen came up from the cabins, where they had been asleep, the captain of the galley drove back Togrukh, casting him bodily into the water. “Vah Allah!” they cried, triumphantly. “U-hal Christ!’ echoed Ayub’s men, pushing forward along the bridge. This shout drew the attention of the res, who, experienced in hand-to-hand fighting aboard ship, determined to clear the run- way. He feared the slaves who were striving desperately’ to win free of their bonds and take their share in the fray now that the slave guards had been slain. For the moment the Moslems had the upper hand. Good swordsmen all, they were fired with the ardor of their race, and to Michael it seemed as if they were a picked lot, and the galley no ordinary merchant craft. | COmiclboook C©