Adventure Magazine Cover — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

The Great Todescan’s Secret Thrust cried the youth and waved the victorious weapon at the stars. Even as he did so, a drop falling from it glittered, a dreadful red, in the light of the quick-match. ‘“‘My God!” he called out, upon a new thought; flung the good sword from him, and was down on his knees, tearing like one possessed at the last inch of the burning rope. The urgency of the peril, for he had no mind to see the fruits of his great combat thrown away, lent a desperate sureness to his effort. In another instant he had sprung up again and was stamping the last spark under foot. Then he stood and breathed deeply, feeling dazed, almost as in a dream. Hemmed in by the rumors, this little square under the bastion was still wrapped in stillness—a stillness that suddenly grew awful to Dick as he thought of the dead man. It was the first time he had sped a soul. In the cant of rufflers, this was “‘his first man.”’ Yonder black heap—that was he who had been Todescan, a name Dick had never spoken but with bated breath! The sight of torches bobbing at the far depth of the wall lane, the sound of running steps and voices uplifted, startled him from his mood. With a sudden vividness he saw his own peril. To be found alone with the corpse of the honored Provost, near the tell- tale petard and the remains of the quick- match, he, a stranger just arrived in the city, without a single friend, without even speech to explain or defend himself—his doom as spy, traitor, and murderer would be trebly sealed! He hastily picked up his rapier, and made a wildcat spring up the steps that led to the battlements, reaching the black shelter of the platform only just in time. There, although prudence urged a noise- less flight along the walls to some farther quarter of the town where, unnoticed, he might mix with the throng, he was fain to sit down and gather strength, for shaking knees and laboring heart refused service. He dropped on the sill of an empty gun em- brasure, and listened. Within the walls the steps and voices were drawing near the spot where the body lay. Outward, beyond the moat, stretched the fields under the star- light. Frogs were croaking with strange persistence. All at once the lane below him was filled with new sounds, exclamations, hurried steps, aclang as ofa falling pike. Im- pelled by a desperate curiosity he crept back to the edge of the platform and looked down. 589 Luridly illumined by the glare of torches, he could see a party of disheveled, anxious- faced burghers, a score or so of them, armed with harquebus or halbert, clustered to- gether. Onerushed, cursing, from the pe- tard at the postern to the body of Todescan. Another was shaking his fist upward as to some unseen enemy. Dick was preparing to crawl to some safer hiding-place, when it was borne in upon him, to his utter aston- ishment, that the slayer of the Town Pro- vost was already vindicated. Little French had he, true, but his wits were sharpened by danger and deed and by his knowledge of the truth in this matter. One, who seemed to be the leader of the party, was speaking, emphasizing his words by vindictive thumps of his clinched hand on his palm: “He sent us to the Bastion de Rives— there was no enemy there! That was his treachery! Todescan has betrayed us— but God has avenged!” And deep-mouthed, thrice repeated, came the words: ‘““Todescan the traitor!” Dick Wyatt straightened himself with a long sigh of relief. Yet he deemed it still best play to withdraw unseen from the neighborhood of these hard-pressed, excited men. Stealthily he wiped his blade; and, in disgust, flung the bloody kerchief over the wall into the ditch. Instantly he was struck by the singular cessation of the obtrusive frog-croaking. He paused a moment, wondering. Then, as though the throwing of a kerchief had been an expected signal, from the darkness with- out a muffled call came up the wall: ‘Eh, is at you at last, Espingolal Are you ready??? At once one of the words evoked the mem- ory of old Strongi’th’arm: ‘‘a corporal in Piedmont they called Espingola”—had said the old man of travels; and he thrust his head through the embrasure and peered into the moat. Yonder, in sooth, huddled at the foot of the rampart—in their black armor, darker shadows upon the gloom— lay a party of the Savoyards. Boyish Dick forgot his wise resolution; all thoughts of safety, of self-preservation, evaporated. He sheathed his rapier and rushed back boldly to the platform’s edge. “Ho, there, my men!” he shouted in sturdy English to the party that was, even then, hastily moving on. ‘‘ Here, here! The enemy is yonder!”’ { COMICOOCKKS. EGO