Adventure Magazine Cover — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

68 to the parapet, leaned out—and started back with a scream. Ali Ma’akwaa leaped to his side, and placed a steadying hand upon his arm. ‘Truly. it was a scene of ter- ror they looked down upon. The dead bodies of Sir Antonio, Fray Gilberto, a squire and several men-at-arms lay by the door which led to the courtyard. In the doorway hovered the leering face of Messer Basil Kontades, the Greek engineer. On the edge of the dais Sir Gui stood alone, sword in hand, a surcoat hastily thrown over his shirt, his shield slashed and split. Behind him, leaning against the high table, her night-shift half-slipping from one lovely shoulder, stood Horazahde. Her magnificent hair fell in a torrent of blackness to veil her white beauty; her face was serene and unafraid. Around the pair swirled a torrent of Saracen warriors, whose silvery chain-mail glittered through rents in their soiled sur- coats; whose white hoods were thrown back from their peaked helmets; whose fierce eyes glared on either side of the vizards which guarded nose and chin. Two of the invaders stood apart from the fight, one a tall old man with a long gray beard and an aquiline Semitic face, the other of stalwart middle-age, cruel featured, hard eyed. Their simitars were bared, and they watched with a kind of hungry pleasure the gradual weakening of Sir Gui’s defense against overpowering numbers. As a dagger-stroke crippled Sir Gui’s shield-arm, the older man shouted an order, and the Saracens stepped back. “Do you know me?” rasped the gray- beard. “Tcan hazard a guess,” replied Sir Gui wea- rily. ‘‘But of what avail? Make an end.” “In good time,” returned the gray-beard. “Tf you do not know me, the woman beside you does. Say, wanton, is my face familiar to youe” “You were once my father, Achmet-ibn- Muros,” answered Horazahde clearly. ‘“‘“Aye, and this man beside me is the Emir El-Afdel, whose harem you were to enter.” Horazahde made no answer, but Sir Gui lifted his sword impatiently. “All of this I guessed. Let us finish it out. Paradise awaits some few of you in this blade.” “You thought I had forgotten your in- sult,” continued Achmet-ibn-Muros, with- Adventure out noticing the defiance. ‘Your Frankish wit could not grasp the fact that an Arab can wait a lifetime for revenge.” “The wisest and the bravest fall before treachery,” said Sir Gui impassively. “I trusted the Greek.” Matteo could contain himself no longer. “‘And if the wise and the brave fall by treachery, the treacherous and the false shall die to give vengeance for them!’’ he cried. The Moslems retreated hastily. Matteo set his hand to the parapet. ‘Hold, father! I come!”’ But Ali grasped him by the arm, and while the two struggled, Sir Gui and Hora- zahde looked up. Horazahde was silent; her eyes spoke for her. But Sir Gui’s voice rang out with the resonant confidence that had steadied many a hard-fought field. ‘Nay, Matteo! Down here is death. Live for revenge, sweet son! Ali, I charge you, guard the boy. By the postern of the Tower of Winds there is a rope for letting messengers down the cliff.”’ Matteo hesitated, but not so Achmet- ibn-Muros. The prince of Emesa waved his hand, and his men rolled forward like a flood of white wolves. “Allah-il-Allah!” shouted the Emir EI- Afdel, joining the onslaught. The Saracens ringed Sir Gui with a circle of steel. He strove to ward them off; but his shield-arm was useless, his sword was engaged in front and on both sides. EI- Afdel thrust through his groin, as another blade hacked into his right shoulder. He sank beneath a shower of blows, and Hora- zahde threw herself forward in a desperate effort to protect his body. Her arms en- folded him as her breast received the point of I:]-Afdel’s dagger, and her blood mingled with that of the man she loved. Achmet-ibn-Muros stepped forward with a fierce light of satisfaction on his face. “Strike off their heads!’ he ordered. “We will set them before the ruins of Nerak for a warning to these Frankish lords that their sins shall be punished.” CHAPTER VI OUTCAST “TET me go!” sobbed Matteo. ‘“Nav, use reason, lord,” pleaded Ali. ‘You heard the order given.” “T will slay them! I will slay them, if I perish in the doing of it!” COMmicaoo S (C@