Adventure Magazine Cover — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

| ae . ree “| iad i : al 2 ; I I P \ Ig % % - Pt 2. ‘ -__ notion suddenly conceived, 9) ee UN a ATER Rte aFee Pes i uv y ANC Pi “ ji Mali RSA ‘i OS ert al) Reeeey Vea) oe > ime UA eV enes a BOSD 3 Whe d mi Ae q 4 vie’. ‘ “ati 2) - > Ue tp, PLN vt Wr e fe ay at bapa @ ek “ Sh! : + rene % wat * & . *\ Ay bet ON Pt ay ‘ y * . was VS joes renttes Ve ge Deal & r Mahi Arrediog Ae Se, . oe i: : vee 4 AS) Bs er oe parte } ; wh - ‘oh ik as aa! 9" «3, Ws Wie WG td “Dost thou, O my father, join with him ss in taunting me upon my lack of knowledge. My youth is a sufficient answer. But at least,’”” he added prompted by a wicked “at least you ~ can not taunt me sa lack of ‘address with weapons.” “Give him room,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, with ironical good-humor, “and he will show us prodigies.’ Marzak looked at him with narrowing, gleaming eyes. “Give me a cross-bow,” he retorted, “and Vu show thee how to shoot,” was his amazing boast. ae _“Thou’lt show him?” roared Asad. “Thou’lt show him!” And his laugh rang loud and hearty. “Go smear the sun’s face with clay, boy.” | “Reserve thy judgment, O my father,” begged Marzak, with frosty dignity. “Boy,thou’rt mad! . Why, Sakr-el- Bahr’s quarrel will check a swallow in its flight.” “That is his boast, belike,” replied Mar- zak. “And what may thine be?” quoth Sakr- el-Bahr. ‘To hit the Island of Formentera at this. distance?” “Dost dare to sneer at me?” cried Mar- zak, ruffling. — “What. dati would that ask?” won- dered Sakr-el-Bahr. e “By Allah, thou shalt learn.” “Tn all humility I await the lesson.”’ “And thou $kalt have it,’’ was the answer “viciously delivered. Marzak strode to the rail. - “Ho there! Vigitello! A cross-bow for me, and another for Sakr-el-Bahr.”’ Vigitello sprang to obey him, whilst Asad ) shook his head and laughed again. it were not against the Prophet’s law 6 make a wager—” he was beginning when Marzak interrupted him. - - “Already should I have proposed one.”’ * — “So that,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, “thy purse would come to match thine head for emptiness.” - Marzak looked at him and sneered. Then he snatched from Vigitello’s hands one of the cross-bows that he bore and set a shaft to it. And then at last Sakr-el-Bahr was to learn the malice that was at the root of all this odd pretense. “Look now,” said the youth, “there is ~ Adventure on that palmetto bale a speck of pitch scarce larger than the pupil of my eye. Thou’lt need to strain thy sight to see it. Observe how my shaft will find it. Canst thou better such a shot?” Soig watching it closely, observed the pallor by which it was suddenly overspread. But the corsair’s recovery was almost as swift. He laughed, seeming so HIS eyes, upon Sakr-el-Bahr’s face, entirely careless that Marzak began to doubt whether he had paled indeed or whether his own esiisateos had led him “to suppose-it. “Aye, thou’lt choose sierisible. marks, and wherever the arrow enters thou’lt say *twas there! An old trick, O Marzak. Go cozen women with it.” ‘“‘Then,”’ said Marzak, ‘‘we will take in- stead the slender cord that binds the bale.” And he levelled his bow. But Sakr-el-Bahr’s hand closed upon his arm in an easy yet paralyzing grip. “Wait,” he said. ‘‘Thou’lt choose an- other mark for several reasons. For one T’ll not have thy shaft blundering through my oarsmen and haply killing one of them. Most of them are slaves specially chosen for their brawn, and I cannot spare any. Another reason is that the mark is a foolish one. The distance is not more than ten paces. A childish test, which, maybe, is the reason why thou hast chosen it.” Marzak lowered his bow, and Sakr-el- Bahr released his arm. They looked at each other, the corsair supremely master of him- self and smiling easily, no faintest trace of the terror that was in his soul showing upon his swarthy, bearded countenace or in his hard pale eyes. He pointed up the hillside to the nearest olive tree, a hundred paces distant. “Yonder,” he said, “is a man’s mark. Put me a shaft through the long branch of — that first olive.” Asad and his officers voiced approval. “‘A man’s mark, indeed,” said the Basha, “so that he be a marksman.” But Marzak shrugged his shoulders with make-believe contempt. . “T knew he would refuse the mark I set,” said he. ‘‘As for the olive-branch, it is so large a butt that a child could not miss it at this distance.” “Tf a child could not, then thou shouldst — not,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, who had so placed SS 200 EOL MUG C6)