Adventure Magazine Cover — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

The Sea-Hawk ungenerous and unjust as to compel thy servant to a course so hateful.” ~ Asad sneered. “Ts that thy last word?” he demanded. | “Save only that in all things else I am thy slave, O Asad.” A moment the’ Basha stood regarding him, his glance baleful. Then deliberately, as one who has taken his resolve, he strode to the door. On the threshold he paused and turned again. * “Wait!” he said, and on that threatening word departed. Sakr-el-Bahr remained a moment where he had stood during the interview, then with a shrug he turned. He met Rosa- mund’s eyes fixed intently upon him, and invested with a look he could not read. He found himself unable to meet it, and he turned away. It was inevitable that in such a moment the earlier stab of remorse should be repeated. He had overreached himself indeed. Despair settled down upon him, a full consciousness of the horrible thing he had done, which seemed now so irrevocable. In his silent anguish he almost conceived that he had mistaken his feelings for Rosamund; that far from hating her as he had supposed, his love for her had not yet been slain, else surely he should not be tortured now by the thought of her be- . coming Asad’s prey. If he hated her, in- deed, as he had supposed, he would have surrendered her and gloated. . And then her voice, crisp and tend. cut into his torture of consideration. _ “Why did you deny him?”’ He swung round again to face her, amazed, horror-stricken. “You understood?” he gasped. “T understood enough,” said she. “This lingua franca is none so- different from French.” And again she asked— “Why did you deny him?” He paced across to her side and stood looking down at her. “*Do you ask why?” . “Indeed,’”’ she said bitterly, “there is scarce the need perhaps. And yet can it be that your lust of vengeance is so insatiable that sooner than willingly forego an ounce of it you will lose your head?” His face became grim again. “Of course,” he sneered, “it would be so that you’ld interpret me.” “Nay. If I have asked it is because I doubt.” “Do you realize what it can mean to become the prey of Asad-ed-Din?”’ She shuddered, and her glance fell from his, yet her voice was composed when She answered him— “Ts it so very much worse than become the prey of Oliver-Reis or Sakr-el-Bahr, or whatever they may call you?” “Tf you say that it is all one to you there’s an end to my opposing him,” he an- swered coldly. ‘You may go to him. If I resisted him—like a fool, perhaps—it was for no sake of vengeance upon you. It was because the ‘thought of it fills me with horror.” / | “Then it should fill you with horror of yourself no less,” said she. His answer startled her. “Perhaps it does,” he said scarcely above a murmur. ‘‘Perhaps it does.” She flashed him an upward glance and looked as if she would have spoken. But he went on, suddenly passionate, without giv- ing her time to interrupt him. “OQ God! It needed this to show me the vileness of the thing I have done. Asad has lots no such motives as had I. I wanted you | that I might punish you. But he—O God!” he groaned, and for a moment put his. face to his hands. She rose slowly, a strange agitation stir- ring in her, her bosom galloping. But in his overwrought condition he failed to observe it. And then like a ray of hope to illumine_ his despair came the counsel that Fenzileh had given him, the barrier which she had said that Asad, being a devout Moslem, would never dare to violate. . “There is a way,” he cried. ‘‘There is the way suggested by Fenzileh at the promptings of her malice.” An instant he hesitated, his eyes averted. Then he made his plunge. “You must marry me.’ It was almost as if he had struck her. She recoiled. Instantly suspicion awoke in her; swiftly it grew to a conviction that he had but sought to trick her by a pretended penitence. “Marry you!” she echoed. “Aye,” he insisted. And he set himself to explain to her how if she were his wife she must be sacred and inviolable to all good Moslems, that none could set a finger upon her without doing outrage to-the Prophet’s holy law, and that “ whoever might be so disposed Asad was not Gomichboo CS (E@) bath edo ae \ rh} <7 oy, i a Aas were . z , x , . Ly - ‘ ay ¢ Obra: gt, vit, 4 ; ; 3 * ee ee A wv We ote.’ a Ff af { Nah eis - ‘ Ae eee Por A 6 LC OES Pa Me a" we Seg SH PE asi Me, hh AT %, Pre Mae bes Pay ~ i) mn a 4 ; p Pbet, bates 45-0 % i isi Ths Dive een Deeb Hi SMT? a Dae Oe Pe Pa Sal it eg tad at yi + Ocha a) : ‘ aN fo Bi Pa DO et os Baw le eT: fy tad hbo & ose ; i i> o wy ae \ ' 5 pe) 4 AR 4 wit ro , Aes Me ol te Cc oah i Vols Aetna ay - Wie 5 + act vita 4 : Re, way , o We be >t ae : it Pa ahs ei ir ecu Do tk restes Helo * toe, A d2 by fei Ds ye) Peet. ey ev de pre as ray aE uJ bike Df at: Ate : . NP EHS Cll Pate VAN or La Ae } da ig ati ae: meas) Bay Yd ea fe nh ys ares PONG ST HR IONE eo TT TE TAO aE Sete eee edd ed eta Aime ae