Adventure Magazine Cover — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

'34 The trap had been sprung and the victims had escaped. : It was vain to look for tracks, and the ponies were palpably left behind as useless. The Turks eyed the wall of rock on three sides with misgivings; no ponies could climb the cliff here, and yet the Cossacks were gone. - “Dil « yarana—be of stout hearts, com- rades,” they said, one to another. ‘The ghils have taken the infidels and without doubt we shall behold them of nights. Aye; fire will rush out of their nostrils, as they spur their ponies through the air while the spirits whip them on.” With this wonder to relate in the villages they hastened back rather more quickly than they came. Only Balaban smiled his smile— “The time is not yet.” VI IBNOL HAMMAMGI = AS I LIVE, kunak, you have brewed a fine gruel for our eating,” Ayub throt- tled his bull’s voice to a rumbling whisper, so that the Cossacks would not hear his complaint. Some hours before the Turks, Demid and his men had reached the end of the gorge, and now sat their steaming ponies gazing blankly at the ice-coated waterfall, the black sides of the impasse, and the fringe of green firs on the heights above—which might have been the forest of Ardennes so little chance had they of scaling the sides of the gorge. “Did I not warn you to sprinkle the witch with holy water and drop her into the sea?”’ Ayub went on, full of his grievance. “You did not, and what happened? First the storm happened and then the Turkish galley, and then Togrukh and his mates performed a deed. Nay, God deliver us from such deeds! Their Cossack heads were stuck on pikes. That is what they did.” Demid, hands clasped on his saddle-peak, surveyed his company. Fifteen of the Don Cossacks had come through, and now were waiting patiently for him to lead them out of this scrape as he had done out of many -another in the past. Sir Michael of Rohan strolled along the nearest rock wall, stretch- ‘ing his legs stiffened by the long rides. “There she sits, the witch!’ rumbled Adventure Ayub. “Brewing—for our quaffing. For the last two days you followed the way pointed out by the Armenian youth, her countryman, who swore he knew the snow road through these mountains. Where are we now? shore of the Black Sea some forty versts, no one knows. We can not go on, and we can not go back. The Turks have already en- tered the foothills below, and that hairless jackal, our guide, slipped out of sight last night like a weasel out of a chicken-roost. May the dogs bite him! He knew we were going to halter ourselves in this stall.” Demid pulled at his mustache reflectively. He had no reason to distrust the Armenian boy, who seemed anxious enough to lead them to safety, and whose life was as much at stake as theirs. ‘“Have you an idea?” he responded curtly, for the fresh misfortune was serious. “Aye, so,’ answered Ayub promptly. “The witch can work a spell for us as well as against. She can find a way out of this if she will. When I deal with her she will bethink her of a way.” Taking Demid’s silence for assent, the big Cossack swaggered off to Lali who was cracking walnuts on the pommel of her sad- dle and chewing with relish. From some- where she had conjured up another veil, and Demid had seen to it that she had a long sable cloak to wrap around her light attire. Seated disconsolately by her horse were the two blacks who, impelled by a dread mightier than the fear of dismember- ment*and eternal damnation, had struggled along at the side of the woman given to them to guard. Standing beside Lali, the head of the warrior was on a level with her own. He crossed himself by way of precaution, and swelled out his chest, letting out a roar of mingled lingua franca and bad Turkish. “‘Daughter of unmentionable evil! Wash- woman of the Styx! Wench of the Grand Turk, which is to say the foster-child of Beelzebub himself—you pulled wool over my brother’s eyes, you took him in nicely, you did!”’ The wide eyes of the girl met his squarely, and a tingle ran through the Cossack’s veins. ‘“‘Demid struck me,”’ she responded. : ‘Well, that is nothing. He will make saddles out of your skin and whips out of your hair if you don’t bestir yourself and oO COMGHOO Sj Save that we are south of the © CO