Adventure Magazine Cover — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

38 “Tt would be a great miracle, Mikhail, lad, if the singing girl mends her ways and uses her arts to aid true men. Aye, a mighty miracle. Yet she touched me— all the kunaks saw her touch me—and here I am with a whole hide and a full belly.’ Now, being quick of wit and having the gift of tongue, Michael of Rohan under- stood a little of the simple speech of the Cossacks, especially the military commands. ‘““When you sleep at an inn, keep one eye open for the innkeeper,” he responded, in his own language. “Bh?” Ayub bent his head down, for the cavalier’s hat came only to his shoulder. He had grown attached to the youngster, who always listened to his remarks at times when Demid, who used few words, was un- communicative. ““Why here she comes, the dove!” Lali in fact was passing the wide mouth of that hut where they leaned at ease, but it was a changed Lali. Her veil and cloth- of-silver had disappeared and her face was pallid under a high lace head-dress. A tight-fitting bodice sewn with silver coins and a voluminous over-skirt of black velvet failed to hide the girl’s natural grace. She saw the two men and made a quick sign for them to follow her. Ayub coughed and glanced covertly at Michael, who was fastening his collar and adjusting his sword-sling at a more becom- ing angle. “It is said among my people,” the Cos- sack ruminated, “that a Syrian can cheat two Jews, and an Armenian can lift the shirt from a Syrian—but still she looks like a dove.” The two followed Lali through a dog in- fested alley, past a donkey-pen and up winding steps where the hovels of the tribesmen could be touched by the hand on either side. Up more steps where children ran out to stare at the girl and to run from the warriors. Sivas was a nest of refuge for the harassed Armenians, hid- den in the higher gorges near the caravan tracks. Michael wondered how human beings could exist there in such squalor, not knowing that the clay and the earth of the huts and the grime and the grease of the children all served to msure them gainst the visits of Turkish collectors and janizaries. Above and beyond Sivas towered the Adventure migaty crests of the Caucasus, bathed in the purple and scarlet of sunset—as for- bidding and awe-inspiring that day as when the priests of Armenia had walked openly in the footsteps of the Christian saints, who for a brief generation had been the monarchs of men and the counselors of kings. ‘Now what is this??? Ayub clutched his arm. Lali had slowed her steps and turned into a shallow ravine up which ran a broad flight of marble flags, broken and chipped by age and frost. Once she cast back at them a glance mocking and searching, then she fell to working at something in her hand, and when she pressed forward again into the shadows she carried a lighted candle. They were aware of muffled voices close at hand and a glow from some hidden source. Lali rounded another corner in the rocks, and they halted in their tracks. Before them uprose the portico of a chapel, but such a one as Michael had never seen before. ‘Columns of blue marble supported it, and within a hundred candles glimmered upon glazed tiles, and images wrought in gold. Lali bowed her head and stepped into the throng of people that stood facing the altar. Every one held a taper, except the watchers in the portico who stared out into the shadows to give word of the coming of intruders. Ayub, however, thrust past the guards and fixed his eyes on the black figure at the altar—an aged man with a white beard falling down the wide collar that covered his shoulders, who leaned upon the arms of two acolytes as if wearied by the weight of the white stole and black robe. The patriarch was intoning a chant, in a high, clear voice, while the people sang responses. Ayub listened with open mouth. ‘“‘Eh—eh,”’ he whispered, “‘here is a batko, a holy father, like ours who was cut up by the Moslems. I will rouse up our lads; they will want to set.eyes on the batko.” With that he hastened off, leaving Michael in the shadow of a pillar. Unob- served, the cavalier watched Lali. When the prayers were ended the girl pressed forward, and there was a stir among the Armenians, when she knelt before the patriarch. The aged man asked a brief question, and cast the smoke of incense upon her. Out of the white wraiths of vapor the delicate face of the girl appeared, and oO cComicloooks (©