Adventure Magazine Cover — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

ae So we stood in the eddying smoke, three against fifteen.” e ke planned. Men who knew that we 1 were upon the raft had put out from shore in the great skiff, and two or three had taken to the water, swimming with throwing knives in their girdles. Probably they were Greeks, who are skilful at casting dirks. They had accounted for our two chaps at the sweeps, arid the noise made by the oars of the skiff had been drowned by the loud song of the burlak with the hawk’s nose. Our foes had uttered the cry of the river pirates, yet I knew that no Dnieper pirates would think it worth while to tackle a timber raft. They sought us out and struck without thought of giving quarter. And they paid a heavy price for their boldness. The big burlak from the other raft made straight toward John Paul with his great, curly head lowered and the muscles stand- ing out on his bare nght arm. But he found me in his path. His cutlas banged against my saber, and I saw that he held a dirk in his left hand. At the third pass I twisted his blade aside and chopped short at his skull. He dodged like a Tatar and came at me with the dirk, his teeth gleaming. 7-phew—what a fel- low! He dropped to the logs with his throat sliced half through. The American’s rapier had made a pass over my shoulder, when my guard was down, and well for me that John Paul was quick of hand. I think they were Greeks, but the fellow who rushed at me with a pike from the skiff wore a regimental coat of some kind. Backing away, to take stand against the lean-to, I glimpsed Edwards standing alone on the raft, his rapier flashing in and out, one arm in the air behind his head. The Moskya with the pike swerved toward the Englishman, and so gave me a chance to cut him down. “Bless you for that, Uncle Ivak! deuce! How things are warming up!” Edwards was smiling, when a musket barked from the skiff and his left hand gripped his chest. Then IJ heard the roar of John Paul’s pistol and saw him draw back from the smoke cloud. He tossed the pistol at two men who rushed at him, and plucked out his rapier, they giving back . before its point. THE surprize had been cleverly The Adventure He took a step toward Edwards, and we both saw the Englishman fall prone. Then John Paul glanced up and down the raft, stepping aside from a rufhan and slashing the man across the cheek as he did so. | Stuppat, Ivak!” he cried. How was I to know what he meant by that word? He slashed the tether of a horse and caught up the rein, swinging him- self up to the beast’s bare back as the horse obeyed the rein and sprang into the water. I could not follow him. Men rushed at me from all sides, and caught my arms, after I had cut one open. Then something whistled in the air and all before my eyes was red. Nay, a chap does not know when he has been hit over the back of the skull. As if from far over the water, I heard Edwards shout: ‘With the admiral, Ivak! or I'll win—wager!”’ Then a faint popping sounded, that must have been men ‘shooting at John Paul. To Kherson— But the red before my eyes had turned to- black and I heard nothing more for a space. IV A Greek to hts dagger, a Turk to his gold and a Cossack to his horse. * uien A LITTLE is my life owing to my Pa heavy sheepskin kalpack and a little aac +4 the desire of the murderers to loot before casting the bodies overboard, but much to the escape of John Paul. The raft had drifted close to the left bank of the Dnieper just before the fight, and the American had only a distance of a musket shot to swim his horse. When the shooting failed to bring him down, the skiff was manned in haste, too late to overtake him. The few men left on the raft began to strip the coats, boots and small gear from the fallen; after this they thrust knives into the bodies of our three rivermen, and the Tatars, and I saw them slay the servant because at that moment I began to see and hear again. Knowing that presently they might re- member me, and seek among the horses, I made shift to crawl a little, then a little more, and I crawled up the incline of logs that made the roof of the lean-to. The bandits were examining the garments they had plundered, by the glow of the fire on the other raft, and finding them poor enough, so that there was much grumbling MICLOOOK C@