Adventure Magazine Cover — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

The Witch of Aleppo The two spoke together, low-voiced, and in the end the Armenian gave his assent, surlily enough. A bridle chain clinked be- hind them, and they beheld Demid within arms’ reach. Lali did not draw back. “‘Ohat,’’ she greeted him,” the slave has summoned the boar of the steppe, and, lo, he comes.”’ ‘‘Are these your people?”’ “Aye, so. Are you ready to bend the head and sheath the sword, to win safety for your—”’ Lali, glancing at the young warrior, altered her word—‘‘your men?”’ ‘“My men do not bend the head, nor do I.” Slender hands uprose to her broW in a mock salaam. : “Great mighty captain of beggars and king of nowhere—have you wit enough to understand this. The low-born lad who ‘led you here did so at my behest. This isa trap, sometimes used by my folk, but a trap for pursuers, not pursued. There is a way out, unknown to the Turks, who will think that demons have made off with you, if you come with us = ‘‘Enough,” whined the cral, who had been sniffing the air like a dog. ‘Snow is coming down from the crests, and we must be upon the paths.” He glanced at the gold and silver trap- pings of the Cossack’s saddle, and at the packs 6f the warriors, who had managed to carry off more than a little spoil from the | Moslem towns. : “These Franks have chosen good ponies from below. That is well. Will they keep truce with us?” é Lali shrugged and turned to Demid. “Will you share our bread and salt, and sit down with the maid you struck?”’ Demid considered, for he did not pledge his word lightly, and the girl puzzled him. “Lead us out of this gorge and we will share bread and salt with you.” She tossed her head, disappointed perhaps because he showed no anxiety to go with her. Ibnol Hammamegi lifted his voice in a shout and his followers began to scramble down from their vantage points. Signing to Demid to accompany him, he trotted away toward the cliff. Passing along it for some distance, he turned in among a nest of boulders. Here the path bent sharply and led into what seemed to be the black mouth of a cave. Entering, the Cossacks dismounted. Torches were kindled and they pressed for- 37 ward on foot, drawing the horses after them. The tunnel ended in a narrow cleft in the mountain where the gray light hardly pene- trated. Evidently, the Cossacks noticed, the mountaineers were following the course of a stream, now dry, that had once forced its way into the gorge they had left. Gradually the chasm widened into a wooded ravine, up which they climbed to come out on the ice-coated slopes of the mountains above the timber-line. The Armenians pushed on with a shambling trot that made the heavier Cossacks pant to keep up. A word of warning was passed down the line as they threaded along a narrow ridge where stags’ antlers, stuck into the stones at intervals, marked the trail. In single file they felt their way where snow- drifts on either hand made the road impas- sable for any who did not know the marks. And, as they mounted again, on firmer ground, snow began to fall. They had left the Black Sea and its guardians behind. VII LALI MAKES A PROMISE IDEA once planted in Ayub’s mind N A stuck as a burr sticks to lamb’s wool. He was sure that the young witch had suffered a change of heart since her talk with him. Had not the Cossacks been well received by the mountain folk, and given shelter in a large hut that was more than half a cave—so steep was the side of the valley on which the hamlet perched? Had not these goat-like people brought to them a goodly pot of mutton and rice, and bottles of really excellent red wine? And straw to sleep on? True, the Cossacks had taken much of this to rub down the ponies, and bed the tired beasts beside the fire within the earth hut. They had done this before eating themselves, and refused to give over the horses to the care of the village folk, for Demid had promised a vivid un- pleasantness to the warrior who lost a horse. Demid himself had gone off at sundown to the cabin of Ibnol Hammamgi, leaving the detachment in the hands of Ayub and Michael. They had slept all through the day, having come in the night before on the heels of the storm, and, being rested and fed, Ayub was moved to give tongue to the idea that possessed him. COmiclbook ©