Adventure Magazine Cover — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

» 126 see groups of the guests, young men in short cloaks of every hue, wearing under these tight tunics of crimson velvet and gold cloth, elderly men in long fur mantles, wo- men in the jeweled exuberance of dress and with the red-dyed hair that was a fad of the time. The splendor of it caused him to gasp. Meanwhile the chamberlain was insolently eying Michael’s boots of soft leather and his ragged mantle. “T have the freedom.of the city,’? mur- mured Michael, still intent on the spectacle within. 2 It was the turn of the worthy chamberlain | to gape and seize his long staff in righteous wrath. A commoner sought entrance to the féte at the Palazzo Contarini! In another moment the guardian of the gate would have shouted for the servitors to fling Michael into the canal. It was well, perhaps, for all concerned that a diversion occurred at this point. A group of lackeys approached the door from within, hauling along a shrinking, stumbling figure in grotesquely striped attire. It was the figure of a hunchback wearing a jester’s cap. Behind the lackeys and their captive strolled several courtiers, smiling ex- pectantly. “Give him to the bear to play with!” cried a servitor. “Nay, set the dogs on him.” “Aye—the dogs, the dogs!” cried the courtiers. ‘‘’Twill be better sport than bear-baiting itself.”’ Michael saw that the craggy face ofthe jester was pale and that he winced at men- tion of the dogs. The anxious glance of the hunchback met his and then circled away as if vainly seeking some avenue of escape. “Hold,” spoke up the chamberlain irreso- lutely, addressing the courtiers and ignoring Michael in the more pressing matter at hand. “This is good Bembo, my lord’s fool and favorite. Would you slay him, signori?” “Verily is he a fool,” answered one of the young nobles carelessly, “and so must pay for his folly.”’ “Not so. He is no man’s fool,” corrected another, “and so the dogs will have his limbs for their sport. ’Tis an ill-shapen thing, by the archangel!’’ “Bembo,” whispered a lackey, “had the cursed luck to spill a dish of sirup of figs on Adventure the train of the donna, who is in a rage thereby. ‘To appease her my lord has cast off the ill-begotten fool and my lady has bidden us make sport of him. The dogs— ho, the dogs!” While one varlet ran eagerly out of the hall, evidently to fetch the dogs of the household, the courtiers dragged Bembo to the door and called the crowd below in the court to witness the coming spectacle. A joyful shout went up and the servitors deserted both table and Turk to enjoy the more attractive spectacle of a human being worried by the teeth of animals. Michael had a swift recollection of his own torture at the hands of Bayezid’s men and the way in which the slaves thronged to watch his suffering. His back stiffened and he swung his right arm gently at his side—the only movement of which it was capable. ground at the head of the stairs, though the courtiers were pushing against him. ‘Strip him,” counseled a rough voice from below#the same lackey who had com- mented upon the fiery temper of his mis- tress a moment ago. ‘““The dogs will bite the ~ fool more toothsomely if he be naked.” “Aye, aye, strip him!”’ the cry went up. “Stay,” said Michael gravely to the courtiers. ‘““The man is a cripple, where- fore would it be small honor to you, mes- sires, to make game of him.”’ “Blood of the saints!” A young fellow with a face like a woman made response. And he stood his — al-. “By the splendor of heaven, what have we © here?” « The chamberlain saw an opportunity to please the nobles. “A man, my lord of Mocenigo,” he in- formed loudly, “‘who claims the freedom of the city and so the liberty to attend the féte of my lord Contarini.”’ The jester’s lined face had brightened at Michael’s words, but now he appeared hope- less once more. Not so Mocenigo, who scented a finer jest, even, than the tor- menting of Bembo. “He does not look like a lack-wit, this burgher-sailor,” he vouchsafed, wrinkling his nose, “but—phah—methinks he is foul of the sea.” They stared at Michael, the crowd below pushing and elbowing to gain a better view. A gentleman laughed and the lackeys guf- fawed. That a common sailor, or so they EoOmichbooks: (S@)