Adventure Magazine Cover — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

- added— gainer. She had heard him bawling for Abdul. ___ Mohbktar, the leader of his janisSaries, and ____ She had seen the hasty mustering of a score ___ of these soldiers in the courtyard, where the. ruddy light of torches mingled with the - white light of the full moon. She had seen them go hurrying away with Asad himself at their head, and she had not known. : whether to weep or to laugh, whether to fear or to rejoice. “Tt is done,” Marzak had cried exultantly. “The dog hath withstood him and so de- stroyed himself. There will be an end to ‘Sakr-el-Bahr this night.” And he had “The praise to Allah!” - But from Fenzileh came no response to his prayer of thanksgiving. True, Sakr-el- - Bahr must be destroyed, and by a sword that she herself had forged. Yet was it not . inevitable that the stroke which laid him -. low must wound her on its repercussion? That was the question to which now she ‘sought an answer. For all her eagerness to - speed the corsair to his doom, she had paused sufficiently to weigh the conse- quences to herself; she had not overlooked the circumstance that an inevitable result of this must be Asad’s appropriation of that Frankish slave-girl. But at the time it had seemed to her that even this price was worth paying to remove Sakr-el-Bahr defi- nitely and finally from her son’s. path— which shows that, after all, Fenzileh the mother was capable of some self-sacrifice. _ She comforted herself now with the reflec- tion that the influence, whose waning she - feared might be- occasioned by the intro- duction of a rival into Asad’s harem, would no longer be so vitally necessary to herself and Marzak once Sakr-el-Bahr were re- moved. The rest mattered none so much to her. Yet it mattered something, and the present state of things left her uneasy, her > mind a cockpit of emotions. Her grasp could not encompass all her desires at once, - it Seemed; and whilst she could gloat over the gratification of one, she must bewail the frustration of another. Yet in the main she felt that she should account herself the In this state of mind she had waited, scarce heeding the savagely joyous and en- tirely selfish babblings of her cub, who cared little what might betide his mother as the price of the removal of that hated rival from his path. For him at least there was Adventure } . nothing but profit in the business, no cause for anything but satisfaction; ard that satisfaction he voiced with a fine contempt for his mother’s feelings. - Anon they witnessed Asad’s return. They saw the janissaries come swinging into the courtyard and range themselves there whilst the Basha made his appearance, walking slowly, with steps that dragged a little, his | ' head sunk upon his breast, his hands behind him. They waited to see slaves following him, leading or carrying «he girl he had gone to fetch. But they waited in vain, intrigued and uneasy. They heard the harsh voice in which Asad dismissed his followers, and the clang of the closing gate; and they saw him pacing there alone in the moonlight, ever in that attitude of dejection. What had happened? Had he killed them both? Had the girl resisted him to such an extent that he had lost all patience and in one of those rages begotten of stich re- sistance made an end of her? Thus did Fenzileh question herself, and since she could not doubt but that Sakr-el- ‘ Bahr was slain, she concluded that the rest must be as she conjectured. Yet the sus- pense torturing her, she summoned Ayoub and sent him to glean from Abdul Mohktar the tale of what had passed. In his own hatred of Sakr-el-Bahr Ayoub went willingly enough and hoping for the worst. He re- turned disappointed, with a tale that sowed dismay in Fenzileh and Marzak. Fenzileh, however, made a swift recovery. After all, it was the best that could have happened. It should not be difficult to transmute that obvious dejection of Asad’s into resentment, and to fan this into a rage that must end by consuming Sakr-el-Bahr. And so the thing could be accomplished without jeopardy to her own place at Asad’s side. For it -was inconceivable that he should now take Rosamund to his harem. Already the fact that she had been paraded with naked face among the Faithful must in itself have been a difficult obstacle to his pride. But it was utterly impossible that he could so subject his self-respect to his desire as to take to himself a woman who had been the wife of his servant. Fenzileh saw her way very clearly. It was through Asad’s devoutness—as she her- self had advised, though scarcely expecting such rich results as these—that he had been thwarted by Sakr-el-Bahr. - That same <S Gomichoo Gol