Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

274 So the men about Abbas felt in their hearts a greater fear than that of the mys- tery of Yahka Arik—the fear of righteous- ‘ly angered women and aged men, led by a ‘priest, of fathers and husbands who cared not for their own lives so long as the ma- rauders were slain—and the struggling Aravang was unheeded until he rose, sway- ing above the body of his victim, the Kurd. Just at that moment Abbas, stariding above him on the wood, reached for his knife. And Aravang, seeing this, reached for Abbas with teeth agrin. A _ pawlike hand jerked the Alaman down, to behind the pile, and the bloody face of the kuz glared at his. ‘“‘ Aid!”” Abbas Abad screamed: “ Aid —O my worthy friends—leave me not.” But down through the aperture came the ragged fusillade from the revolver of Edith Rand, and the followers of Abbas fled away from this new peril, crying that the place was bewitched, and that there were spirits in the tower. Abbas groped on the stone floor for the knife which had fallen from his hand in his fall, and saw that Ara- vang had set his foot on it. his death in the savage eyes that flamed into his. “Thou art the man,” roared Aravang, “who would have burned my mistress. Taste then what ye have stored up!” Aravang had taken a small log in his free hand, and upon this the eye of the merchant fastened while prayers and offers of money flooded from his quivering lips. In the midst of his begging he flung his stout body forward, seeking to upset the kul, his hand clutching for the precious knife. Aravang stepped back swiftly, and Abbas reached the knife—only to sink down upon it, his skull shattered by a blow from the log driven down with all the kul’s weight behind it. Then Aravang took up the body of his enemy in his arms and strode over the massed wood, limping under the hurt of Edith’s wandering bullet, but inexorable in his purpose. He staggered forward among frantic horses toward a group of Tartars who had flocked together in the center of the court- yard, while the struggle ebbed about them And he read THE ARGOSY. in the moonlight. He stepped over bodies that writhed on the stones, and _ pushed aside, unheeding, a Sayak girl who was moaning out her life, a bayonet in her breast. ‘ Sayak!” he heard the battle cry of the tribe: “ Sayak!” The darkness under the parapets was rife with sound and movement as scattered Tartars and Alamans sought vainly for leaders, and gave back under blows from swords that they could not see. ‘They are devils!” cried one. ‘“ Flee— flee! ”’ Aravang headed toward where he could see two robed Sayaks standing and a third kneeling. Beside them a figure lay prone on the floor. As he approached the kul heard the kneeling Sayak speaking very quietly. | “Tamam shud (it is finished),” Iskan- der was saying, swaying upon his knees. ‘““Ohé, my enemy is slain by my hand— as I have sworn—it has come to pass.” Then Aravang saw that the body on the stones was that of Monsey. Beside it he tossed the bulky form that was Abbas, and turned to Mahmoud, who, with the adj stood beside the Arab chieftain. ‘The son of Tahir is dying,” said Mah- moud to Aravang. While the fury without cbbed through the kurgan, Donovan sat passivcly on the lowest step, holding the precious burden of the woman close to his chest. Having assured himself that she was uninjured, he waited, stroking the coils of heavy hair that had fallen loose upon her shoulders. And while he waited, fate tossed the dice of destiny; the battling elements of this world of the hills tore at each other, and parted. The moving finger of unal- ~ terable Providence wrote —a fragment— and passed on, unseen. The smoke lifted and drifted away from the walls of the castle. In the heavens, the moon declined behind the cloud bank to the west, and the stars alone looked down upon the mountaintop. . To the exhausted watcher on the stairs it seemed as if his life and the life of the woman in his arms was carried onward by cComicloooks C©@