Adventure Magazine Cover — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

I20 mustering a crusade, to assemble at that city. The chivalry of Europe was taking up arms against the Turk. “There will be a battle,”’ he whispered to himself, “‘and I shall have a share in it, God willing.”’ II THE RIVER OF DEATH 6a AO TEBE sunset, and a war galleass was feeling its way with a double bank of oars against the sluggish current of a broad river. There was no wind and the heavy red pennon emblazoned with a winged lion hung nearly to the water be- tween the steering-oars of the high stern castle. The dark figures of men-at-arms pressed close to the rail of the benches that ran along each side of the waist of the vessel, above the moving gray shapes that were tlie rowers’ backs. - “Give way, to the shore,” called a voice from the stern platform. As the heavy-timbered galleass drew in, fully manned for action, toward the rushes of the bank, the speaker cupped his left hand to his eyes and stared at the ruddy light of countless fires. His right arm hung stiffly at his side. A-year had not availed to restore the use of his injured arm to the man who had been a Turk’s slave. Now by infinite pains he could manage with his left.- Unlike the men-at-arms and the mailed Venetian archers clustered upon the stern, he wore no weapon. Michael Bearn had reached the Venetian fleet in the Black Sea at an opportune moment. Experienced ship-masters were needed to take command of the new galleys that were to cooperate under the Venetian flag with the Christian army on the main- land. : The body of the Venetian fleet lay off the mouth of the Danube, waiting to convey the victorious army of the Christian Allies to Asia Minor and Jerusalem. It was a great array that had come against the Ottoman. Besides the Vene- tian war-craft, Sigismund of Hungary was up the river and the cohorts of Slavs, Mag- yars and the Serbs. With these were the pick of the chivalry of France, the forces of the Elector Palatine and the Knights of Saint John. Adventure They had struck down through the moun- tains of the Serbs and besieged Nicopolis, on the river. Warnings of the approach of the conqueror Bayezid had reached them, and the French knights who had brought shiploads of women and wine down the Dan- ube had laughed, saying that, if the sky were to fall, they would hold it up with their spears. Verily it was a goodly arra¥ of Christen- dom before Nicopolis—an army blessed by the Pope and dispatched against the Otto- man, who had swept over Arabia, Egypt, Asia Minor—far into Greece, now impotent, and the rugged mainland behind Con- stantinople. The Moslems held Gallipoli and a khadi held court beside the marble and gold palace of Palealogus. Bayezid the Con- queror, surnamed the Thunderbolt, had never met defeat. Bayezid had advanced to the relief of the Moslem governor of Nicopolis and Emperor Sigismund and Count Nevers, commander of the French, had given battle. For days, hearing of the coming struggle, Michael Bearn had chafed upon the narrow after-deck of his galleass. He had urged the Venetian commander to make his way up the river, to assist in the struggle if possible. Bearn had been told by the provveditore that the fleet of the Signory of Venice had promised to convey the army only to Asia Minor. It was not the policy of the Mari- time Council to risk the loss of good ships— but Bearn was allowed to go, to bring news. It had been a dangerous path up the Danube, for small Turkish craft thronged the shore and bodies of Janisseries were to be seen from time to time in openings in the dense forests. | Now, conning the darkened galleass close to the bank, Michael Bearn strained his ears to read the meaning of the tumult on shore. He could see horsemen riding past the glow of burning huts and the clash of weapons drifted out over the quiet waters. “Sigismund pursues the Saracen!” ex- ulted a man among the archers on deck. Wild hope leaped into the heart of Michael Bearn. Was the issue of the battte so soon decided? Had the armed chivalry of France outmatched the power and skill of Bayezid? He yearned for the first glimpse of victorious French standards. Yet, knowing the discipline and power of the veteran Moslem army, he doubted the COMME OOOKS EO)