Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

a0 _ not be gone a year. -than we suspect or will admit. el ee ee you have search made through all your district for the man who murdered the fiscal. I am content to leave the matter in your hands until I-can return. In the mean time Don Francisco will stand sponsor for my reappearance and I can do much to help him.” Mendoza was frankly puzzled till Cor- onado spoke: — Z “He says well, my friend. Whe quest for the Seven Cities must not be held up for any one man—and he dead. I will If Andres here dies on the trip, it is only what you would do to him if he be tried and found guilty by our Spanish law. If he lives, I promise you on the word of a Spanish caballero that he will return for trial. In the meantime my word is: ‘Find the girl.’ You will find that she knows more of it What say you?” Mendoza thought for some time. What Andres and Coronado urged was perfectly true. Once he should leave with Coronado there was no road by which he could escape. The expedition had been a very costly one to prepare and the Court at Madrid looked for great returns from it. It was by no means sure that Andres was guilty and Spanish justice was slower than death itself. Why not let him go with Coronado, who would be answerable for his return? He nodded slowly. “You can go,’ he said presently. “And in spite of your rebellious words tonight, I pledge myself as one gentle- man of Spain to another, to allow no word of libel to be spread about you dur- ing your absence and to see, on your re- turn, that you have a fair trial. Can I do more? It is settled then, and I will say good night, gentlemen. Do you start to- morrow ?” ee “At daylight. Fray Marco has sent me word in another of his precious scraps of Scripture, telling me that he will join me at daylight at the gate. We _march at daybreak.” “T will be at the main gate, then, to send you forth in royal style. Sleep well.” He received and returned the formal salute of the two and strode off into the night. Coronado started to speak but Andres cut him short. Adventure “Not a word, Don Francisco, if you please. You have done enough this night. I need no words from you to tell me that you do not believe that I have done this vile thing. I too am very sure that when the girl is found that she will be found to be equally innocent, but God knows how we can prove it. I will go to my men to see that all is ready for the start at daybreak.”’ He went to the great plaza of the city, where the watch-fires of his Indians had burned low. The three hundred Span- iards were billeted in the neighboring houses, from which came-sounds of all- night revelry. The horses and mules snorted and pawed on their picket lines, for the night was cold and a cutting wind was blowing. What an adventure it was after all! needed just this one thing to give the real zest to it, for now he was gambling with his neck in the noose. Well, he had done it before! How he had squirmed and twisted on that day with Cortez when they had lowered him with ropes into the flaming hell of Popocatepetl’s crater to get sul- fur to make the powder for the guns of the conquistador! He had the same feel- ing now. He would have a year’s reprieve at least, and much could happen in a year, and in the meantime there was Cibola that Fray Marco had actually seen. Let him once win to Cibola and the death of twenty fiscals would not be held against him. A. dozen queries as to Cibola, Fray Marco, Mercedes, flashed through his brain and they all came back to one query— “What had happened to Mercedes ?” What had happened to Mercedes? URT in mind and body, and furi- ously angry at having had her re- quest for mercy denied, deeply insulted by the drunken grossness of Fonseca, she had left the plaza and had gone straight to her apartments in the house of the governor. Servants who saw her as she entered scarcely knew her, so greatly had she changed from the laughing, happy girl they saw every day. Maria, her foster- mother, had been quick to see that some- thing was wrong. She followed the girl EComichboo cS) = — - = A weed re ee eee RS eS ee ee It () 6s bh = mn