Adventure Magazine Cover — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

28 had cracked invisible fingers. The stays hummed, and the galley leaned to port, ceasing its rolling. Balaban had made the sheet fast. “Lash the oars with the blades aft!’’ he shouted. The slaves, expecting this command, hastened to obey, and shouted with relief when the two banks of oars were secured and their labor at an end. The bonanza had ceased and the wind had come. The galley, deep of keel and slender of beam, rushed ahead through the darkness like a fish-hawk, skimming the sur- face of the waters, ready to rise into the air. By the next evening the wind had risen to a gale. Balaban, glancing to the north with the last of the light, ordered the oars inboard and lashed to the rail. White gleamed on the crest of the swells, and a roaring was in the air. Foam flecked the faces of the men and spray, dashed up by the prow, drenched the chilled bodies of the rowers, stretched on their benches. “It is a maestro wind,” explained Ostrog wisely. “For two days it will lash us. Slay the horses while there is time.” But the Cossacks would not do that. The ponies staggered against the dip of the vessel and jerked at their halters. One screamed, and another, plunging, broke its halter. The men nearest the frantic ani- mals began to barricade themselves behind piled-up benches. Balaban and Ayubtook one of the steer- ing sweeps, Ostrog and Michael held to the cther. A dull creaking began in the depth oi the galley, and before the third watch the sail ripped loose from its sheet. Snapping and lurching, it whipped forward from the slanting spar. But the braces held. The mishap to the sail brought about what the seamen on Fl Riman had been dreading—the stampede of the ponies. Rearing on each other, and crashing against the rail, half of them were loose in a mo- ment. Demid, running to the break in the poop saw what had happened and went down with Togrukh and a half-dozen Cos- sacks. They climbed over the barricade of benches, and worked in among the horses, half swept from their feet when a roller came over the windward rail. Several of the beasts were lost in this wave, borne over the side. Cursing and straining every muscle, the Cossacks worked to get the rest in hand. To add to the con- Adventure fusion on the galley many of the long oars had broken from their lashings. These had to be secured, and the heads of the ponies bound in sacks. With their heads muffled the beasts quieted somewhat, but the gray light of morning revealed the Cossacks still among them, silent and blue with cold. They were driving ahead in high seas, the tatters of the sail on the spar serving to keep the prow of the galley steady. Rain, in gusts, lashed them, and the whine of the wind sank to a moan. From the depth of the galley came again the song of Lali, barely to be heard, fitful as the cry of a ghil of the waste. The Cos- sacks crossed themselves. One of their mates had been washed from the waist and another lay crippled among the horses. ~ LATE the next afternoon they sighted a Moslem war-galley. Only a mild “6's swell was running, and for some time they had been drawing in to a new shore. An irregular coast, with jutting head- lands and dense forests first appeared and, later, the white walls of houses and the cupo- las and minarets of mosques. They had not observed the town until they rounded a long point and found themselves almost in the mouth of a narrow harbor where a score of carracks and galleys had assembled to ride out the storm. Balaban perhaps, could have told them what they would come upon, but he kept his own counsel, and Demid, after a glance into the bay, gave order to row on, without haste. He made out the ramparts of a fort, and noticed that one of the galleys had its anchor up. They had no choice but to try to steal past, trusting that no one would think it worth while to send after them. Sight of a half-dismantled Algerine galley passing the port without putting in proved to be too much for the curiosity of the com- mander of the war-vessel, and the Cossacks saw its prow appear around the headland before they were two miles distant. Pres- ently smoke puffed from a port in the fore- deck of the pursuer, and Ayub swore under his breath. : “Yonder serpent of the seas carries half a dozen barkers, and four-score warriors. Demid, kunak, we must put spurs to £&l Riman, and outstrip the dogs, or they will pound us with iron balls and sprinkle us with arrows.” COmiclboook CO