Adventure Magazine, April 10, 1924 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

6 Adventure swept the Orontes and the bare, red hills that pressed down upon it, for signs of other riders who might have followed Ab- dullah, and lain concealed during the talk. But the far side of the river, shimmer- ing through the heat haze, was empty of life. 3d Abdullah had followed his example, and when the stallion had lifted its fine head te. let the water run out between its teeth, he turned in the saddle. “Will the lord grant one boon to his servant? Your word that I shall not be harmed by the Nazarenes at Montserrat?” Robert shook his head. He had been taught by his father never to break his word, whether given to a Moslem or one of his own peers. Abdullah, however, seemed satisfied with this response, and rode ahead up the trail of his own accord. They had no more than entered the tamarisks again, when both reined to a halt,. and the horses fidgeted. From up the hill loud voices drew nearer, with a clattering of iron, a yapping of dogs, a braying of asses and a creaking of wheels that made a small bedlam of the quiet of the valley. FROM between the gray bushes emerged a gaunt man, stumbling under the weight of a tall banner of sOiled samite upon which was embroidered @ crimson cross. On his heels tramped a throng ragged and filthy, living scare- crows with feverish eyes. Drawing aside from the trail, Robert watched the company pass. Some carried bundles slung to pike or staffi—bundles that jingled and clanked, spoil beyond a doubt snatched from some native village. Many lay sick in the lumbering ox carts, and a leper walked alone at a cart tail, his bell clinking when he stumbled. In another araba lay a woman, suckling a child scarcely a month old. A lad whose only garment was a torn shirt peered up through the dust at the knight and the minstrel. ““Good my lord, is’t far to Jerusalem?” “Too far for a springald such as you,” Robert responded gruffly. “‘What company. is this?” The boy pointed proudly to the red cross sewn on his shirt. “Messtire,” he piped, “I am from Prov- ence, like the demotselle herself. We heard. the blessed de Courcgon preach, and we are come to deliver the city of Christ out of paynim duress.”’ He trotted on, and an English yeoman in green jerkin and feathered hood stopped to scowl blackly at Abdullah, and spit. z ‘A murrain upon yon infidel! When we set forth we e’en had forty thousand such as that’—nodding after the boy—‘“‘and now, by the shadow of —-—, we have but two. Aye, he and the lass.” ‘“‘__’g wounds!” eried Robert. “Was this a crusade of the children?”’ “Ah, that it was, tallmy lord! Verily the mob did betake itself to divers paths from Byzantium, some adventuring upon the sea —and St. Giles and St. Dunstan ha’ mercy on them—some upon the coast, where they did fall to quarreling and warring with the Armenians, and are no better this day than crow’s meat, dryingi’ the wind. Our com- pany was. five hundred strong when we left Byzantium behind. And now 4 He leaned on his staff and jerked a thumb at the rear of the party.. The pilgrims num- bered no more than fivescore. ““A black malison on the infidels, say I.’’ Robert wondered: who the lass of this array might be, but just then some dozen men began to crowd around Abdullah, curs- ing him and fingering the axes at their belts. Some one flung a stone that made the black horse rear, the minstrel keeping his seat in the saddle with easy grace. “Salvation awaits him who sheds the blood of a Saracen!” cried a giant with a pocked face. ‘Seize his horse for Father Evagrius!”’ suggested another. ‘Send him to pare the ——’s hoofs!” Taking up his reins, Robert urged the bay between the angry throng and his companion. Whatever the mission upon which Abdullah of Khar had been sent, the man was of gentle blood, and the nobles of Palestine had sworn a truce with the Mos- lems, giving hand and glove upon it. This oath Robert felt to be binding unless the enemy broke the truce. “Back, ribalds,”’ he commanded. ‘Pass on. This is a minstrel who rides with me.” The mob seemed made up of villains, of commoners, and the knight did not feel called upon to voice reasons for his action to them. As some men.in rusty haburgeons drew their swords, he rose in his stirrups to peer through the dust. “Ho, the leader of this pack!; The chiei GoOmiGcbdooksEeo 5}