Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

Days of Morgan She knew that the country they were in was overrun with soldiers of fortune, tem- porarily out of employment because of the cessation of the wars the king had waged in the Low Countries and turned adrift to shift for themselves, like hungry wolves let loose in a sheepfold. One of the men, a great high-shouldered fellow, in the dress of a soldier of Flanders, though he looked more the Spaniard, quit his companions, and, leaving the room by a small door at the back, which opened long enough to show the corner of a smoke- grimed kitchen beyond, with a pot steaming on the grate, came back again on the in- stant, with the landlord at his heels. The landlord nodded at something the fellow said to him—all this in a twinkling—and when Nancy turned to ioin the Irish lad, one of the others crossed i te room at a bound and shut her off from the door. And then, as there came to her from the frosty court- yard the crack of the postilion’s whip, and the crunch of wheels, and she realized that the coach had gone, she saw him leap to- ward her, with a billet of wood in his hand, saw the freckle-faced boy spring at his neck from behind and go down with a blow on his head, saw the landlord bar the door and pull the torches from the wall, saw the other two men, as the light faded out, hurl them- selved upon her, and then—nothing. .| HOW long a time had passed before =| she put forth her hand in the dark- ness she did not know. But she did know, vaguely, that the effort cost her pain, and she seemed to float off again on a sea of unconsciousness. Again, after a long, long while, she stretched forth her hand and this time she clutched something—a handful of straw. The discovery surprised her. She pondered upon it, minutes — hours — weeks — time meant nothing. She tried again. More straw. She was on her back, lying upon a bed of straw and rushes. It was certainly not the coach. In a cart, then, for it was moving, and roughly, too. If it were not for the pain in her head, she thought, she could tell wheth- er it was a cart or not. Yes, it was cer- tainly a cart. There was no room in the coach for one to lie prone upon the floor. Then where was the coach? Where was the landlord of the inn—and where were the 9 three men in the corner by the casement— and the red-headed Irish boy? A groan at her side answered this question. He was there beside her, in the straw. Moreover, his wrist was tied to hers with a knotted rope. This discovery prompted her to still another: their feet were lashed together. No matter! It was only the pain in the head that counted, after all. As for the Irish lad, he no doubt was dead. Had she not seen him struck down? No; he had groaned. Well, he had groaned, and then died. Yes; she had seen him struck down by a blow on his head. And then they had come upon her, in a rush across the room, and had taken her off her guard. Her mission was a failure at the start. She had been spied upon, followed, half killed, and carted away like a sack of meal. And back in Lille two men waited anxiously for her to deliver the tidings they were sending to England. Too bad! ‘Too bad, indeed, for they had put such faith in her! She opened her mouth, and the scream that poured forth in an angry, inarticulate wail of rage brought the front flap of the cart open with a jerk, and she saw framed in the opening, against acold gray sky-line, the thick-lipped face of a man, with tooth- less gums, and a pair of yellow eyes, eyes the color of burnished gold, that looked as if they would scorch and burn and wither; eyes that blazed up and then grew dull, that flashed again, and sparkled like fire; eyes that seared her, that bored into the very soul of her, that she knew she would never forget again as long as she might live, and that she never did forget. Not a word did he speak. Not a sound came from between those thick, purpled lips. But his eyes were eloquent. She looked into them, and obeyed their silent command. The flap of thick cloth that covered the cart dropped back into place. She was in darkness, with only the image of that pasty head, hairless, with not a bristle upon it from nape to chin, bald as a turnip, and col- orless but for the purple, swollen lips, and a great patch of red that showed when the lips were opened, to haunt her memory. And so she dropped off into nothingness again. When next Nancy raised herself to look about her it was broad day. The man with the yellow eyes was leaning into the cart, hacking with a knife at the ropes that bound her to her comrade. He turned those two CoMmicboooks (©