Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

SYNOPSIS: Gervase Agnew, civil engineer, takes charge of building the Bir Railway in the Balkans, ignorant that the engagement of his employcr’s daughter, Katrine Gresham, and partner, Gordon Glaisher, has been outgrown by the girl. In the muddle of international politics the road is covertly opposed by Italian secret societies, with Gessi, a sectional engineer, the Commandante Sarrasco, and the Turk, Fsuli Bey, as leaders. Jovan Vaco, Gresham’s supposed couricr Vilip, and other Balkan patriots work for its completion. Agnew, though estranged from Katrine by supposed ill-treatment, is persuaded by her at Jovan’s instigation to pretend a love-affair to intensify Lucia Gessi’s passion for Agnew in order to learn from her the lost plan of the former engineer Sanders, who died a victim to Lucia’s wiles, for overcoming an unbridgeable break in the road. Uiko, a fisherman, reports that Esuli Bey has tampered with secrct underground passages from the lake. ans. CHAPTER XXII GESSI TAKES ORDERS ° wyeeeee eL-SOL took his eye slowly from the | ? G theodolite and turned to see what manner of man it was who ad- coum=e. dressed him with the whining accents of a professional beggar—a native of Palermo, as his accent betrayed. He saw a middle-sized, swarthy compatriot, girdled with the eternal scarf of red, clad in a most dilapidated jacket and trousers and holding out his hand with an air of graceful melancholy. ! Several attempts are made to assassinate the Americans and Albani- Glaisher, angry at his dismissal by Katrine, tries to ruin the road by financial attacks in New York. “Excellency!” said the man, with a la- mentable gesture. “I starve! For the love of God—an alms?” Gessi observed him gravely. An instinct told him that this was no mendicant. What should bring an Italian beggar up into the wilds of Albania? And was there not some- thing familiar about the stranger’s aspect? Both these questions were answered with- out words. Below his breath and faintly between his teeth the man whistled a little air of runs and sharp staccato hits. Gessi drew a pace or two back from the track, out of earshot of the ballast-tampers. 1075 Comicloooks = CO 5}