Adventure Magazine Cover — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

The Witch of Aleppo : “they spit out the sunflower seeds.” Anger, like the dull wrack of the clouds overhead, settled upon the men by the fire, and the last thing to come into their thoughts was that they should actually have a feast that Christmas Eve, or that songs would be heard in the camp. | ; | and a Cossack emerged, wrapping the collar of his svitza about his ears. As he passed by the fire the men who had come in from patrol glanced up, with a vague hope, but saw that it was only the Scribe’s orderly. ‘Some one back yonder,” he jerked a thumb toward the church where the coun- cil of elders sat, “is mad as a werewolf. Such a night, and a war party is or- dered out!” “What kuren?’”’ demanded the captain. THE door of the church opened ‘“‘And they must send me to rout out - those —— of Don Cossacks.” The messenger shook his head sourly, and passed on, the lanthorn in his hand flickering as it swung beside his bowed legs. The men from the Don country were said to take after their leader, Demid, who was a sword slayer, and a falcon. “Eh, they will be at home upon the snow road this night,” he thought, ““because what is not Gipsy or Tatar or brimstone in their blood is akin to the witches.” Unnoticed by the Scribe’s orderly and the others, a figure came out of the open door of the church and moved after him. This was a man so tall he had to stoop to pass under the lintel, and he walked with the swaying gait of one who had spent the better part of a lifetime in the saddle. Their course took them by the high pali- sade, open to the weather, where prisoners were penned. Hearing a muttered curse hurled after the orderly’s light the giant paused in his stride. But what mattered the storm to condemned men who would know the feel of a rope around their necks or the icy embrace of Father Dnieper before another day dawned? They passed the empty stalls, once occu- pied by dram-shop keepers. ‘Too well the camp followers had probed the leanness of the purses in the Siech. True, the wide Cossack steppe was fertile, but the villages had been reduced to burnt posts sticking up in the snow, the harvests had been gar- nered by the Turks, the horse herds thinned by Tatar thieves, and the cattle were dying off from lack of fodder. Gaining the lee of the last barrack shed, apart from the others, the messenger kicked open the door. _ “An order, good sirs—” he began, with misgivings. Abusive shouts interrupted him at once— ‘““May the dogs bite you!” “Close the door, you son of a jackal!’’ “You have been swilling the sacred wine, now that the priest is dead. As God lives, you think you are our colonel, to give us an order!” “No, he is looking for his own quarters, the gallows-pen—what evil business are you about, ‘Bandy Legs’?”’ ) Sitting in groups about smoking fires some three-score warriors were casting dice on scraped hides or matching each other at odd and even. Overhead, hung to the raft- ers, black sheepskin coats were steaming, and the reed-strewn clay that served.as a floor was littered with bear and wolf skins. In the corners lay men nursing wounds, the evil aroma of short clay pipes filled with Turkish tobacco mingling with the smoke of damp wood and _ half-dried horse-dung. They were bearded and dark-skinned. Several bore the purple scars of recent sword-cuts on cheek and forearm—big- boned fellows, taller than the usual run of Cossacks. The orderly noticed that no gold or silver lay on the gaming boards, and that only the wounded were smoking. Tobacco was in scant supply here, as elsewhere in the Cossacks’ camp. “Sabers and saddles, my turtle doves!” oO cComicloooks (©