Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

Murkwood Spears of idleness, no hint of impatience at the weather and the dragging siege. A quarter of a mile back of the rearmost trench rose three great pavilions, quite a hundred yards apart, the banners of the three allies droop- ing above them. At the curtained entrance to each stood men-at-arms, erect, fully armed. Between them horses grazed and picked soldiers ex- ercised throughout the day. At night the cooking-fires gleamed before them, glowing red on the mail of the men-at-arms. Day and night men rode back and forth between these pavilions, receiving orders, bearing reports. Now and then de Born idled over to the quarters of Umfraville; sometimes Umfraville sought out de Born. It was rarely that either of them consulted the man who was brain and soul of their enter- prise. Richard de Monrepaire lay sick and rest- less under his silken canopy, quarreling with hi§ attendants, snapping at all who ap- proached him. The pain and fever of his wound had exhausted all his carefully nur- tured calm, all the smooth cunning that had served him so well. As if pain had not been enough, the defeat he had suffered from Gis- lac’s sortie, as Gislac had foreseen, had cost him his prestige with his Cangerous allies. Even the Flemish me-cenaries sent by King Stephen showed a decreased respect, while their officers hung zbout the tents of Umfraville and de Born. The wisdom of Sir Giles seemed to have p-oved itself by the outcome. Yet Sir Giles doubted its entire success and was troubled. His tactics had worked out as he had planned, so far as the cordition of his ene- mies was concerned. Umfraville and de Born, beaten in their clumsy assaults, had lost so heavily as to question the outcome of their enterprise. Above all, they had lost faith in themselves. If this had been all, matters would still have been perilous for High Tower; for Sir Richard, enjoying the repute of a leader un- shaken among discredited subordinates, would then have dominated the other two. He could have forced his counsels on them, and those counsels would nave been for sit- ting down patiently to a slow siege, while hunger wasted the defenders. Gislac had hoped that his sortie would shatter the strength and the standing of the Rotten Reiver and make all three of the chief foes of High Tower sick to death of a war that 37 brought them only defeat and shame. In this hope he was disappointed. The days dragged on. The sun grew fiercer, the siege more intolerable; yet the surrounding hosts sat doggedly about the Tower, neither loosing their hold nor relax- ing their watchfulness. The first of July saw the grim-faced sentries on the wall tightening their belts and counting thé scant mouthfuls of their carefully doled ration. Gislac starved with his men, sharing the dwindling supplies with unselfish justice. No humble soldier, no Saxon serf, even, re- ceived less of food or drink than Sir Giles and his daughter. Only one in the tower knew not that famine threatened. Tended with infinite gentleness, Geoffrey de Monre- paire ate and drank of the best and s®wly regained his strength on the plenty with which his plate was heaped. Had he guessed that his betrothed and her father set aside for him the best of their own small share, that the bright cheeks of Mar- garet grew paler that he might become strong and well, he would have flamed out in a rebellion that would have spoiled all their care had done for him. Geoffrey mended surprizingly, thanks to his clean youth and the sparkling blood his ancestors had bequeathed him. He could walk about a little now, though not for long; but he might not leave his chamber. He still fretted for his uncle, till Gislac had to tell him that Sir Richard had been slightly wounded in a sortie. The sun’s heat flared down more pitilessly on the half-starved men patrolling the un- shaded wall than on their more comfortable enemies, who had the pickings of the whole countryside. Monrepaire’s new earldom meant wider domains to pillage, more hard- worked peasants to strip of their laborious stores. The daily ration in High Tower grew less and less. Every day the thin- flanked horses in the stables were culled for meat. Fodder there was little; all the corn fit for human food had been eaten. Now the very chargers, the pick of the stalls, were singled out for flesh. When they were gone, there would be but one recourse— surrender. Walking the parapet, Sir Giles bit his nails and moodilv wondered at the failure of his cunning. Hard as had been the toll in life and glory that his generalship had taken of his enemies, the siege still held on. The camp had all the appearance of permanence; COmiclbook C©