Adventure Magazine Cover — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

150 quick. word. Gian in turn muttered something to his men and took his stand behind the bent form of Bembo. Michael waited alertly. Rudolfo cried at him suddenly— “Your sword and dagger, throw them down!” The words were prompt and so was Michael’s answer. He thrust his captive forward against one of the oncoming troopers. Snatching out his sword, he parried the rush of another, beating down the man’s blade and sending him to the earth. Instantly Michael dropped to his knees and the third assailant tripped over him, cursing. The fourth, a short, wiry fellow in pliant mail, thrust at the Breton before he could rise. Michael caught the blade in a fold of his cloak and lashed out as he came erect. The man dropped with a split skull. . Rudolfo had set spurs to his horse, while the others looked on aghast at the swift clash of weapons. Before Michael could step aside, the condoitiere’s beast struck the sea-captain, knocking him a dozen feet. Then came the grinning Gian, who leaped upon Michael’s sword where it had fallen and glanced inquiringly at Rudolfo. “Do not slay,” instructed the condottiere. “Bind Master Bearn to the Tatar or Turk or whatever breed of devil it may be——’” “And where may the devil be, signor?” inquired Gian, gripping the half-stunned Michael in his great hands. They looked around at that and beheld the Tatar vanishing into the bushes up the slope by the road. His long turban cloth trailed after him as he leaped with the nimbleness of a goat from rock to rock until he passed from sight before the men-at-arms could draw bow. Nor could a horse follow where he had gone. “No matter,” grunted Rudolfo. ‘Messer Soranzi, verily you are a greater fool than I took you for. The guile of Master Bearn bewitched you. Not only would you have let him ride free, but you would have fol- lowed where he led—to his allies the Tatars or fiends‘or whatever they be.’”* He leaned from his saddle to ferk Michael, who was more than a little hurt, to his feet. “So, my friend,” he sneered, ‘‘you would hide. your knowledge from us and bargain for it! By the Pope’s head! Tonight I promise myself we will know all you know. Adventure Gian has a rare knack with a dagger’s point inserted in a man’s ear. There is no time for’t now; this is a perilous place——” Whereupon the men-at-arms set Michael on a horse, binding his wrists together be- hind him with the wrappings taken from the escaped Tatar. The Breton was badly shaken and bleeding from the mouth, but they handled him in no wise gently. The minds of the servitors were full of the idea of Satanic powers pursuing them. Since Michael showed no fear and had familiar knowledge of the pagan tribes, these men had no doubt that he was in league with the powers of darkness that their superstition conjured up. Soranzi was torn between fear and greed. The astrologer in Venice had assured him of profits passing through his hands such as he had never seen before. As for Clavijo, he was burning in the fires of conscience. He had lied. In his story before the Venetians he had repeated that his followers had been slain at the edge of terra incognita, and that the spirits of the waste land had dogged his footsteps. And now these two things had happened. He felt as if he were under a spell and found himself looking about for the tower of skulls that he had included in his tale. Only Rudolfo was free from supersti- tion. Under his quick orders the bulkier and less valuable portions of baggage and stores “were abandoned. Sick horses were set loose. When they had mounted, Clavijo saw that no provision had been made for the sick servant or the dying soldier. “You would not leave them, signor?” he cried. Rudolfo shrugged. “They will die anyway.” When the cavalcade of mounted men and pack-animals moved off, Bembo slipped- from the thicket where he had hidden during the hurried departure and ran among the horses, clinging to Soranzi’s stirrup. The. merchant, reduced to a state of panic by the events of the past hour, drove him off with kicks and blows. “Leave the fool to his folly,” gibed Gian, who noticed Bembo’s frantic efforts to keep up. “To leave him would be to reveal our course to those who pursue us,” observed Michael. So Bembo was suffered to hold his friend’s stirrup. GOmichbooks: co