Adventure Magazine Cover — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

20 brooding to Togrukh. “If she had been a horse, that would be well, because a horse can be managed even at sea, and, besides, is worth more than a woman. Even our ataman can not make any good come out of a woman on a journey.” The sergeant sighed and moistened his mustache in a nuggin of mead. He was a melancholy man, and he had troubles enough, at present. “Tf the Father says she will be a passport, she will be.” ‘“‘A passport to purgatory!” Ayub snorted. “Your horse has more intelligence than you, Togrukh, because he shies at a petticoat. I say the girl is a witch! If you say other- wise I will pound you.” Togrukh sighed again. “Then, ataman, let us drink to the witch.” 3 “Well, this is rare good mead: there is sense in you, sergeant, if a man digs enough to get at it. Let us drink to the witch.” V The ways of the sea are blind ways; whosoever fol- lows them knoweth not the end of the road. The caravanserat of the sea is a place of sleep; who- soever sleepeth within it 1s nol seen again of his fel- lows. ARAB PROVERB. age Cossacks had learned by long ex- perience on the road to make the most of whatever came to hand. -Being skilled carpenters, they were able to remove the central bridge and build horse-pens around the main mast, sufficient for two dozen ponies. This done, they set up larger water- butts at the break of the poop. Embarking the horses was a problem. Ayub built with the timbers taken from the galley, a narrow jetty at the deepest point of the shore and the vessel was brought up to this during a calm. The rowers’ benches were rearranged— half a dozen before the horses, as many be- hind. Three men were put to an oar in- stead of two, the captured janizaries near the poop on which the Don Cossacks quar- tered themselves. Balaban shook his head. “If we run into a storm, the horses will break loose and bring terror among the rowers. The galley will steer badly, and how is the sail to be lowered?”’ “That is your affair,” pointed out Ayub. ‘What would we do without horses when we set foot in Asia?’’ Adventure “They will die of thirst before then, be- cause the water will suffice only for a week. Your chief has ordered me to strike out across the main sea instead of coasting. It is a hundred leagues to the southern shore— eight days sailing if the wind holds fair. But what if we have a bonanza, a dead calm? Take thought of this: the oars will not drive the galley against a head wind, nay, nor a cross wind.” ; Fortunately the galley was well stocked with foodstuffs, and in the sleeping com- partment of the dead reis they found an astrolabe, and an old Venetian compass. No charts, however, were discovered and when they shipped the anchor and set out from the half-moon bay, they were forced to rely on Ayub’s knowledge of the coast line, and Balaban’s reckoning. The surviving Christian captives — Greeks, Genoese, Spaniards, with a smat- tering of French and Dutch—pulled will- ingly, for Demid had promised that once the Asian shore was reached, the galley and all in it would belong to them. They pre- ferred to take their chances in some trad- ing port of the southern shore, rather than land on the bleak Tatar steppe off which the fight had taken place. Moreover their toil was lightened because now they rowed in shifts, and as they labored, their eyes dwelt gleefully on the naked backs of the jani- zaries once their masters, now chained to the benches. In such fashion did El Riman, the swift galley, set out to sea. “Faith,” grinned Michael, casting his eye down the deck, “’tis Jason and his Argo- nauts, come to life again.”’ Leaning his weight on one of the long steering-oars—he and Ostrog shared this duty with Ayub who alone of the Cossacks had voyaged on a galley—he bethought him of the saga of Jason and his men, the first of the adventurers of the sea. Surely, the Argonauts had been the first to come into this sea, and they, too, had steered for Asia and the court of an un- known king. “If we had a Medea aboard, now,” Michael meditated, following his whim, “the company would be complete. Aye, we have no sorceress.”’ Now it happened then, the day being fair, and the sun warm, Lali in her cabin below was minded to song. The thin note of her guitar seemed to come from the oO cCoMmicloooks CO