Adventure Magazine Cover — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

> ‘him. ee swered, "\ightly almost. : for the eiarts oF was to exert on her behalf— accepting them as her absolute due, as the = - inadequate liquidation of ‘the debt that lay between them—yet there was now none of E that aloofness amounting almost to scorn which hitherto had marked her bearing toward him. He came again some hours later in the afternoon, when his Nubians were once more at their post. He had no news to bring 2 her beyond the fact that their sentinel on the heights reported a sail to westward, beating up toward the island before the very gentle breeze that was blowing. But the argosy they awaited was not yet in sight, and he confessed that certain proposals _. which he had made to Asad for landing her in France had been rejected. Still she need’ have no fear, he added promptly, seeing the sudden alarm that quickened in her eyes. A way would present itself. He was watch- ing, and would miss no chance. ‘And if no chance should offer?” she asked, “Why then I will make one,” he an- ing them all my life, and it would be odd if ~ I should have lost the trick of it on my life’s most important occasion.’ This mention of his life led to a question from her. : _ “How did you contrive the chance that has made you what you are? I mean,” she added quickly, as if fearing that the purport of that question might be misunderstood, “that has enabled you to become a corsair “Tis a long story, that,” he said. “TI should weary you in the telling of it.” ~ _ “No,” she replied, and shook her head, her clear eyes solemnly meeting his clouded glance. “You would not weary me. _ Chances may be few in which to learn it.” “And you would learn it?” quoth he, and added, That you may judge me?” : ‘Perhaps,” she said, and her eyes fell. With bowed head he paced the length of 2 2 tie small chamber, and back again. His desire was to do her will in this, which is natural enough—for if it is true that who knows all must perforce forgive all, never could it have been truer than in the case of Sir Oliver Tressilian. _ $o he‘told his tale. Pacing there he related it at length, from the days when he __ had toiled at an oar on one of the galleys of Spain down to that hour in which aboard “T have been mak- ' Adventure — the Spanish vessel taken under Cape Spartel he had determined upon that voyage to England to present his reckoning to his brother. out too great a. wealth of detail, yet he omitted nothing of all that had gone to place him where he stood. And she listening was so profoundly moved that at one mo- ment her eyes glistened with tears which she sought vainly to repress. Yet he, pacing there, absorbed, with head bowed and eyes that never once strayed i in her direction, saw none of this. “And so,” he said, when at last that odd narrative had reached its end, “you know what*the forces were that drove me. An- other stronger than myself might have re- sisted and preferred to suffersdeath. But I was not strong enough. Or perhaps it is that stronger than myself was my desite to punish, to vent the bitter hatred into He told his story simply and with-— ~~ a = Pee vey OS i ee NY 2, ~ os — Gag Se >) >= oar ge = r Ce at ay ee ae ie “$e i which my ‘erstwhile love for Lionel was — turned.” — \ “And for me, too—as you have told me,” she added. “Not so,” he corrected her.. “I hated you for your unfaith, and most of all for your having burned unread the letters that I sent you by the hand of Pitt. In doing that you . contributed to the wrongs I was enduring, you destroyed my one chance of establishing my innocence and seeking rehabilitation, you doomed me for life to the ways which I was treading. But I did not then know what ample cause you had to believe me what I seemed. I did not know that it was believed I had fled. Therefore I forgive you freely a deed for which at one time I confess that I hated you, and which spurred me to bear you off when I found you under my hand that night at Arwenack when I went for Lionel.” “You mean that it was no part of your intent to have done so?”’ she asked him. “To carry you off together with him?” he asked. “I swear to God I had not pre- meditated that. Indeed, it was done be- cause not premeditated, for had I considered. it, I do think I should have been proof against any such temptation. It assailed me suddenly when I beheld you there with Lionel, and I succumbed to it. Knowing ea I now know I am punished enough, I “T think I can understand,” she mur- mured gently, as if to comfort him, for quick pain had trembled in his voice, IOOKS (E@)