Adventure, December 1914 — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

The Sinews of War on my side this afternoon. What Kemil Bey, honest lad that he was, missed en- tirely, would be an open book to her cynical- ly keen observation. “I’m just as glad you didn’t bring her out, Kemil,’’ I answered him, as carelessly as I could. ‘‘She—well, she’s not the sort of woman it pays to have over-much to do with.” “‘That’s right,” he agreed. ‘I didn’t en- courage her, to tell you the truth. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow; and we'll try out that thrust under the parry again.” For the first time in months I smiled cheerily at Kemil Bey’s retreating back. It was refreshing to feel that this time the joke was going to be on him. > DINNER was soon over—I had no- body to talk to, nothing to do but eat and wish that the minutes sped faster. Then I went to my room followed by a guard, with loaded rifle and bayonet fixed, who halted at the door. Inside I was assured of privacy and I walked restlessly up and down the floor, waiting for the hour of my escape to strike, and wondering what hour it would be and what form it would take. As I strode up and down, hour after hour, until midnight was almost due, I moiled over a thousand and one daring methods of executing the plot. I was pre- pared for violence—outcries in the night. Judge then of my surprise when the sound that finally broke the stillness was the open- ing of the door. I turned quick as a flash to face Masoya standing there in her sol- dier’s uniform and fez, a heavy bundle of rope in her hand. She smiled faintly. ‘“‘There isn’t time to say anything now!” she warned. ‘“Come—we must start at once.” She moved toward the window. “It’s cold water down there,” she said. “Can you swim?” “Yes,” I said, wondering. She had already begun to unroll the bun- dle, which I saw to be a rope-ladder; and as I answered her she made one end fast to the door-knob, bracing it around several of the heavier pieces of European furniture in the room. ‘‘We must swim the Straits,’”’ she ex- plained quickly. ‘There is no other way. It is only a thousand yards across from here. We shall have to chance it, that is all. There was no other plan that was practicable.” 195 But not even the thought of the dark, chilly water below the window could dis- may me with liberty in prospect. I had slipped off my coat and shoes before she finished speaking. ‘‘We must hurry,” she went on. ‘The men on guard are bribed, but to save them- selves they will have to get away before they are relieved.” I nodded. Words were obviously super- fluous at such a time. She stripped off her own coat and heavy soldier’s boots, and I hoisted her through the window. “Do not wait for me to get all the way down,”’ she whispered, as I leaned over her. ‘The ladder will hold two.” But before I swung out to follow her I took a look up and down the Straits. Far off to the west there was a faint blur of lights on the horizon that was Constanti- nople. Nearer, and this side of the bends in the channel, were the riding lights of several cruisers. But there were no lights within a distance of two miles to the west- ward, while to the eastward the guard-boats at the Black Sea entrance flashed their searchlights at least a mile outside of the strip we were to cross. It was forty feet down the sheer walls of Hilmi Bagtchi, and without a light to go by it was no easy feat. Even with Masoya ballasting the ladder at its bottom the light fabric swayed continuously, and the next rung was generally a foot away from where you had supposed it. But at last I reached a point within six feet of the water and looked down at Masoya, crouched just above the ripples breaking against the base of the Palace walls. “Ready?” she questioned. (Ves .”? She slipped in, with a gasp at the shock of the ice-cold water, and a second later I was beside her. ‘‘No time to lose,’’ I chattered between clabbering teeth. ‘‘We must make it while we have life warm in us.” Silently, yet with desperate eagerness, we struck out through the black water of the Straits. At first every muscle in my body_was numbed by the paralyzing cold, and I could hear the plucky girl beside me gasping at the recurring shock of the wave- lets that slapped her face. But if death was around us, just as surely death lurked behind. The only road to safety was the road ahead. And there is 9) NOOK C©