Adventure Magazine Cover — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

Forward 5 this. It is a secret mission and when you dismount at the end you will step into a dungeon, like as not.” “Or they will tie your scalp-lock with a riband like a Prussian pigtail,” said another. “It may chance that Pavel will be a woman,” put in the other essaul, “and then, Ivak, you will be in worse trouble thee a calf tied to a cart-tail.” I buckled my bag and saddled the Kabarda stallion that I had brought up into Muscovy. Then I took my lance from the rack, for we had been equipped with lances having long streamers, like the Polish hussars, and said farewell to the kunaks, my brothers. “At least,’ I told them, “I will not be standing in an open cofhn—”’ for that is how we called the sentry boxes—“‘saluting Moskya officers and picking my teeth. Nay, in another month I will be dancing with your girls in the Dnieper villages.” They were sorry to see old Ivak go, and so. they cursed my beard until I was in saddle, then all came forward to press my hand and bid me go with God, as is our custom. Truly, though we had _ jested, their words and mine came close to the mark. For the journey that began that day was a race and not a journey at all. We raced with Death. Aye, it followed close upon the heels of one of our company. And the end of the road was a strange place—where not even an order of the Empress bids a Don sotnik go. And here, my brothers, is the tale of the journey and the man who made it, [es] Lieutenant Edwards, were in a fine ___#-3I brick house with a courtyard near the river. Even at sunrise many officers were being carried home from the festivities in sedan chairs and sleighs by their servants, heydukes dressed like Turks or Poles or Tatars, in turbans and pelisses with silver frogs, though why the high commanders of St. Petersburg should dress their servants like their enemies I do not know. Nor why the most trusted officers of the Empress Catherine the Great should be chosen from among Prussians, who were as stiff as lance- poles, or French, who wore white wigs. But that is how it was. I found the Englishman in the courtyard, in high boots and a fine blue coat. He had been at the festivity, but he was not drunk, THE quarters of the Englishman, because he was looking to the saddling of a big roan. The horse was dancing and quivering, and the grooms kept their dis- tance from its heels. Lieutenant Edwards took the reins, gaining the saddle in the same instant. As I live, there was a fiend in that roan. It circled and reared, and the officer’s three- cornered hat flew off into the mud. Then he lost his whip, and the roan started to bolt. The Englishman could ride a bit, and. he pulled the beast up short. But the roan knew what to do next; it wheeled against the fence and the man had to slip a foot from stirrup to save his leg from being crushed against a post. At once the fiend with four legs reared, and Lieutenant Edwards followed his hat, rolling over in the muck almost under the nose of my Kabarda. Now few things are as pleasing to a Cossack as a bit of tricky riding. I was smiling, and the officer thought I was laughing at him, which was not so. Buta man does not feel proud when he has tum- bled out of a saddle. ‘“‘Climb down, you pig of a Moskya,”’ he said in good Russian, “and my men will give you a whipping.” “Health to your Honor,” said I, and dis- mounted, for his rank was higher than mine and it would have been insolence to address the officer from saddle. I, also, could speak the language of the Musco- vite well—the speech of the Moskyas, which is not quite the same as our Cossack tongue. “The sotnik, Ivak, reports to you by order.”’ He looked me over, frowning. Perhaps he had never before seen a Cossack. His cheeks were clean shaven and his eyes were clear. Probably he was not more than half my age, and certainly he Jacked half a head of my height. Perhaps my svitza, my long coat, was ragged at the bottom; but if the Englishman had eyes for such things, he would have seen that my sash was a fine Turkish shawl and the red morocco in my boots was good stuff. He called to his servants to bring him his hat and whip and they did so, keeping out of the way of the roan, which was ranging the courtyard, snorting. The Englishman’s chin was set and his nostrils quivered and it seemed to me that he meant to use the whip on me himself, which would have been an evil thing for Co NOOK ©