Adventure Magazine, April 10, 1924 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

The Making of the Morning Star and by now should be near to the main cities of Khar. So Abdullah had outlined the journey to him. He asked Father Evagrius to call for Ellen, and the priest shook his head, saying that the maid was kept within the after part of the boat, guarded by Ethiopians. The Kankalis, the priest explained, had permitted her to nurse him during the height of his fever, while he was being carried in a horse litter; but now the Moslems took care to keep her apart. Of Will Bunsley he knew little, save that the archer had survived the gorge of the Sialak and his voice had been heard at times thereafter, complaining bitterly of his chains and a diet of rice and sour wine. Unable to sit or stand, Robert was fain to be content with this. He could not see over the side wall of the boat, nor could Evagrius see anything at all, and neither of them might speak with Ellen. So for days the knight was constrained to lie gazing at the roofed-in after-deck where the slender form of the maid of Ibelin some- times appeared, heavily veiled. At such moments her eyes would seek him out, and she stood where he was visible until one of the guards signed for her to enter the hang- ings that separated her from the men. Father Evagrius spent his time in con- templation, eating slowly when food was brought and fingering the cross that hung from a cord about his lean throat. Robert, waxing more irritable with the confinement and the odors of the boat, marveled at the grave quietude of the priest who was pre- paring himself to meet death at the hands of the Moslem tormentors. There came an evening when he could stand and look out from the boat, as the Moslems were at the evening prayer. The river proved to be broad, and thronged with other craft. Gardens, divided off by lines of flowering trees, lined the bank, and Robert observed at once two marble pillars down-stream. ‘These rose from the dark mass of a wall, and until they drifted through the water gate he would not believe that he had judged truly the height of the wall: Within it he saw the glimmer of lighted pavilions close to the water, and black spires rearing against sunset over domes that gleamed purple and crimson. Straight down upon their boat rowed a barge, draped in black silk and driven by a score of slaves. Ce the raised platform behind the rowers 33 a half-dozen men, turbaned and robed in many-colored silks, leaned on brocade cushions and stared down at the smaller craft and its crew. “Ho, Moslems!”’ A tall man in the bow of the barge challenged them. ‘Who enters :-the water gate after nightfall?” Robert could not understand the reply of his captors, but presently a command issued from the barge and the sailing-skiff was brought alongside, the rowers lifting their oars. The same speaker, who seemed to be overseer of the slaves, ordered the warriors to send up their prisoners and the woman of the Franks. When Robert’s guards argued a mellow voice called out from the stern in liquid Arabic. “Surety? Am I not Osman the hadj2, Wazir of the Throne and master of Bokhara? I will be surety to the Shah, and that will suffice thee. Jackals—sons of jackals and sires of dissension! Yield up the Franks and seek thy pay in the appointed day and place! Am I a hireling to be affronted by slaves in the hour that Allah decreed for pleasuring?’’ To a man the soldiers in the boat cast themselves on their knees and beat their foreheads against the planks. Yet Robert heard one murmur to another that the wazir had kept in his own purse the pay that had been promised them. The negroes ushered Ellen forward, through the waist of the boat, and in the deep shadow under the side of the barge she stumbled. “Abdullah’s word to you, my lord!’ she whispered quickly. “Hide it!” He heard the rustle of paper sliding over the reeds of the deck, and leaned forward. “‘And what of you, demotselle?” “Father Evagrius hath prayed. Tend him—let no injury be done to him.” One of the negroes thrust Robert back, and steel gleamed in the shadow. The girl was lifted to the barge, and he took ad- vantage of the respite to search for and find a narrow roll of parchment that lay near his feet. Putting this in his girdle, he helped the patriarch out of the boat and followed, rendered dizzy by the sudden movement but finding his limbs steadier than he had thought. ‘So this is the champion of the Franks,” observed one of the Moslems about Osman, “who named himself the Lion and clawed Inalzig, the bekator, to death with a score COnmiclbooks G (© S|