Adventure Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

58 “Tt have not been here long enough to know,” she murmured. “You have only to ask for what you wish,” he urged. “Then I may go?” she asked, but there was no insistence in her voice. ‘““Go?”’ he echoed. ‘‘Why would you go, lady? Where would you go? Are you not safe here? Is there anything you desire which you may not have?” He waited long for a reply. “I—do—not—know,” she said at last. ‘Are you lonely?” he suggested. Again she did not answer. He drew closer to her. ‘‘Horazahde!”’ She did not retire before him; she did not look at him. She stood motionless, her veil cast aside, her shimmering robes sweeping the dusty grass, her eyes fastened, as his had been a moment since, upon the craggy, sun-bathed rocks of Mount Zorash. “T do not know men,” she remarked of a sudden. “T am glad that you do not. and let me teach you.”’ For the first time her eyes met his, humid, lustrous, tinted by hidden fires. “Stay with you—always?”’ “Always, Horazahde!”’ “You will keep me? You will not let me go—not even if my people send for me? You will not tire of me and cast me off?” {»? Stay here ‘“‘Never—by the splendor of The sunlight glinted on his crisply curling black hair. One clinched fist was lifted above his head. All that was strong, all that was noble, all that was great in him shone forth in his beaked Norman face. And her eyes kindled with new depths of passion, her figure drooped forward. He caught her in his arms, and her body clung pliantly to his. Her lips were willing. The restless surge of life snatched them up in its embrace and bore them swiftly, faster and ever faster, out upon uncharted seas. “Mortal sin!’ muttered Fray Gilberto as they passed him, oblivious in their rapture. “Mad youth!” grunted Sir Antonio, watch- ing them climb the stairs to Horazahade’s bower. But their love was very real, and if it did no more, it lifted Sir Gui from the brutish level of a march baron, who gave no thought to any concern beyond food, drink and fighting. They lived together, as it were, in a world apart, riding and hawking, pacing Adventure the garden under the Tower of Winds, tell- ing each other tales of the years before they had met. So the days sped, and became weeks until three months had passed. Then, one morning the warders on Baldwin’s Tower blew their horns to call the garrison to arms, as a long column of Saracens de- bouched from the desert track and drew rein a far bow-shot beyond the moat. One of the invaders spurred forward to a point opposite the gate. “In the name of Allah, peace!’’ he cried. “T would speak with the Frank lord, Messer Gui de Taberie.”’ Sir Gui climbed upon the battlements of Baldwin’s Tower. “T am Gui de Taberie,’”? he answered. ‘‘What do you wish with me?” , “T am the herald of Achmet-ibn-Muros, prince of Emesa. He demands that you render unto him, safe and undefiled, his daughter, the Princess Horazahde.” Sir Gui laughed aloud. “T could not deliver the Lady Horazahde up to you, if I would.” “We know that she is with you,” returned the Saracen sternly. ‘“‘Aye, she is here, but she would not leave me, if I gave her permission to go with you.” His words carried clear to the main body of the Saracens, and they raised a hoarse shout of rage. _ “Wave you ravished her?’ demanded the herald. ‘“What I have done, I have had her con- sent in doing,” rejoined Sir Gui. ‘Be con- tent with that.”’ “Nay, hear me further, Christian dog,” shouted the herald. “‘My master, the prince of Emesa, bids me say to you that by this token he declares relentless war upon you.”’ And the Saracen hurled his javelin against the walls. “He will wage war upon you without ceasing, by day and by night, upon you and all your company, upon the stranger who tarries within your gates, upon the women of your bed and the servants of your board, aye, upon the children you beget or have begotten. He will destroy that which is yours. He will show you neither pity nor mercy. He will swear his sons to the task. He will devote all his treasure to vengeance, if need be.”’ ‘“‘He hath set himself a mighty feat,” re- plied Sir Gui. ‘My walls have withstood more powerful lords than he.” GOMIGooOO S (©