Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

64 ‘It was a voice murmuring, broken, like that of a woman moaning in unutterable SOITOW. “‘What was that?” the boy exclaimed. Sir Richard once more felt the hairs of his neck rise. Often had he heard that moan by night and heard it wailing under his walls, and rising to look forth, had often seen a white form flitting back and forth toward the edge of the forest. It was the voice that had set his sentinels to huddling together like frightened children in the dead watches of the dark. Furtively the Reiver glanced about him; but the only white figure there was his nephew on the far side of the tarn. He must finish the matter swiftly, before the peasants came up and cut him off from the castle. First Geoffrey, then Gislac. “Give me my life and freedom, lad,” he pleaded in the tones of a weary, defeated old man. ‘Give me but those. I will yield to you, now and forever, my earldom and my sword.” For a moment Geoffrey did not speak; then: . “Much as you have betrayed me, cruelly though you have wronged me,” he an- swered, “I will grant you what you ask. You are of my blood; I will try to forgive. Come, we will ride back with Sir Giles. I will vouch for your safety.” “I come,” the Reiver promised most sub- missively. He held out his sword, hilt foremost, in his right hand. His left clutched his dag- ger, its blade hidden by his broad leather reins, its point quivering to be plunged into the young fool’s throat. Ah, when Geoffrey should be near enough to reach out for the sword! One stroke, swift and sure! To approach at the best angle for the thrust, Monrepaire turned, to make the circuit of the tarn. The shadow of a clump of dense trees overhung that side of the pool. As he stepped into the shadow, something white leaped out at him. A slender figure, robed in torn white garments, its long hair stream- ing, it came close with staring eyes. The earl pulled back in fright. “The White Lady!” he gasped. His face, turned full to hers, caught the silver ray of the moon. At sight of it, the woman shrieked in a scream that was half a sob— “Odo!”? Adventure She sprang upon the Reiver, her wasted features writhing with hate. Her out- stretched arms clutched at him, closed around him. Frozen with surprize and superstitious fear, neither he nor Geoffrey could think of her as aught but one of those elf-women whom all believed to haunt the Murkwood and drag benighted horsemen from their saddles. Then, as he felt her grip on his thigh and saw her face looking up into his, Sir Richard suddenly knew her. She was Ar- lotta, the faithless maid whose help had aided Odo to strike his murderous blow at Geoffrey. Driven forth by Gislac, crazed by her grief for her lost lover whom the Reiver had slain to conceal his own guilt, she must have hidden in the wood by day and haunted by night those walls from which Odo had been hurled to his death. All this Sir Richard knew in a flash, un- derstanding also that in some mad way she felt his part in her lover’s doom. But it availed him little. His roan, startled by her swift approach, shied violently on the very brink of the pool. Vainly the earl strove to control his mount with voice and knees, then dropped both sword and dag- ger to grasp the reins. Rearing and toppling, the group swayed for a moment on the crumbling bank. Then the earth gave way. Witha three-fold scream, they fell together. Even as Geoffrey rode toward them, they disappeared forever in the deep waters of the tarn. CHAPTER XV ST. SIMEON’S FEAST qpee sentinel above the gate of Flamford Keep started from sleep, rubbed his eyes and gazed furtively about to see if any had observed his lapse from duty. The sound that had torn through his dreams pierced the air incessantly, waxing, waning and waxing again with even regularity— the strident squeak of ungreased axles down the road. Nearer it came, swelling in discordant volume. It stopped. Some one hallooed from the gate. The sentry looked down. “Who comes?” he challenged, his hail closing in a smothered yawn. A rustic voice answered him: “Will o’ the Wood and a wagon-load of fagots, brought by my lady’s orders to COMmicloo S CO