Adventure Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

The Witch of Aleppo closed, leaving him to the shadows of the torture chamber and the contemplation of the bastinado ropes that now seemed luxu- rious compared to the fate in store for him. He wondered who the unseen speaker had been—for who would countermand an order of Sidi Ahmad, within the palace? ‘“‘Perhaps a woman,” he reasoned. To be drawn on a stake by horses, before a throng of watching Turks! Michael gritted his teeth. Hanging was better, and yet—and yet, he would not play the part of a coward. If he could make up a false tale—but instinct warned him that the pasha was not to be hoodwinked. “Ah, if they would put a blade in my hand, it would be a blessed thing.” He thought longingly of Demid, and the chance of having a weapon smuggled in through the grating of the window. Demid had tried to get him free, and speak with him—had taken a daring chance—but the Cossack could not know where he was confined. “What a lad he is! God save him!” thought Michael admiringly, and wondered what plan the Cossack meant to follow. Demid had done as he promised Ibnol Hammamgi—had passed openly through the gate of Aleppo and the wall of the castle, into the Wolf’s Ear. Perhaps Lali, who seemed to know all things, had an inkling of where the pasha kept his treasure; perhaps the singing girl could find out. Michael had reasoned that the treasure would hie in the tower or under it. He was quick of wit and he had noticed that the janizaries who brought him had turned over their prisoner to the personal slaves of Sidi Ahmad at the tower door.. He had used his eyes and had a fair idea of the plan of the palace, which was much like that of a medieval castle in England. At the rear a sheer cliff some twenty feet high rose from the slope of the hill. Above this were the terraced gardens of the palace itself, protected on the other three sides by a wall of solid marble blocks, too high to climb, too massive to beat in. The road that led up to this wall from the alleys of Aleppo passed through the single gate, of iron-bound teak. Seen from the suk this gate seemed to be the eye of a wolf, the palace its skull, and the tower its ear. The palace itself was small, forming three sides of a courtyard. The embrasures 49 of the dungeon, set with iron bars, looked . out upon the cedars and olive trees and the pleasant fountain of the courtyard. Michael could see no more than the tops of the trees and the spray of the fountain, for the open- ing was a spear’s length over his head. It seemed to him that the torture cham- ber was the base of the tower, as the walls were of massive black basalt and the col- umns supporting the ceiling were thick as buttresses, instead of the slender pillars of Arabic design. In fact the grim, black tower with its rounded cupola was like nothing else in Aleppo. Perhaps it had been built centuries ago for an astrologer— certainly it served to guard Sidi Ahmad from assassins. | All at once Michael stiffened where he sat in a corner of the torture chamber. A slight sound had reached him, the mruffied gritting of iron against stone. Often before when the chamber was in darkness:he had heard this sound, but now he was aware of a breath of stale“air that passed across his cheek. . As quietly as possible he rose to his feet, with an effort, for long fasting had sapped his strength. Too clearly to be mistaken he now heard the tinkle of a guitar, and a swelling voice, high and plaintive. “From afar I watch for thy coming, “O my lord!” These were the first words of Lali’s song and the sound of it came through the em- brasure overhead. Michael felt for the heavy ropes that hung near at hand, put his foot in one of the loops and drew himself up by his arms until he could see out into the court. a Sidi Ahmad was giving a feast near the pool. Cresset torches held by motionless slaves revealed a company of Turkish ofh- cers, in colored silks and velvets, kneeling on carpets, listening to the song of the girl. Beside the host was Demid, the stem of a hubble-bubble in his hand. Lali sat a little apart from the other slave girls, behind a screen of palms, and Michael noticed that, even while she sang for the pasha, her glance went to the Cos- sack. At the end of her song, while the guests were smiling and praising her to the slender Turk, Michael ventured to call to her softly: | “Daughter of Macari, a boon I crave of him who shared bread and salt with me—a COMmicloo S C©