Adventure Magazine Cover — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

56 “‘Hassan will open it.” “With what?” ‘With you, O my companion of the road. You will be a leper, about to yield life; he will be your son, taking you to the ditch in the burial place wherein those who are un- clean are laid while they still breathe. To rid themselves of you, the guards at the gate will open it a little, unseen, because it will be dark by then.”’ “And after that——”’ Demid took up the dates left by Michael, who had eaten what he dared, and fell to munching them. “First there is a tale to tell.” ( AND it was a tale that banished all desire for sleep from the weary Michael. A generation after Christ, the body of St. George was laid in a tomb in one of the cities of the Israelites. When the wave of Moslems over-swept the land, the Turks heard of the legend of al-khidr, the Emir George, and sought for the tomb but did not find it. The Armenians, however, who took refuge from the invasion in the north- . ern mountains knew the situation of the tomb of the warrior saint, and during the crusades pilgrims from their folk visited it— until the order of the Sultan of the Turks forbade Christians to enter Aleppo. So much Demid had heard from the batko—the priest of the Cossacks. The tomb was at the base of the tower which now formed the Wolf’s Ear, a dozen feet or more underground. At the time of the Moslem conquest, the last Christians to leave the tower had screened the entrance to the stair leading down to the tomb as well as they could. But since the pasha’s palace had been built around the tower, Ibol Hammangi had heard that the stair had been uncovered. The cral had ventured once with the Armenian patriarch in disguise to penetrate to the site. The patriarch knew of another entrance, also covered up by rocks that led in from the hillside behind the palace at the base of the cliff. They had been able to remove the protecting boulders unseen by the guards of the palace above, and had made their way up a short passage to the vault, only to find that the inner door could not be opened from the outside. It was on leaving the passage, after re- placing the rocks, that Ibnol Hammamgi Adventure had been seized and tortured by janizaries. During his captivity Ibnol Hammamgi had used his good eye and his ear to advantage and suspected that the tower was now a treasure vault of Sidi Ahmad. rR “FAITH!” cried Michael of Rohan, (Gey) “the one-eyed mountain goat has the “=< right of it! The torture chamber where I lay may be the chapel of St. George, and the tomb must be below it. Aye, I mind that Sidi Ahmad passed at times up and down a stair into which a door opened from the place of torture.” He described how he had encountered the master of the Wolf’s Ear the evening before and Demid listened attentively. “The stair leads higher, into the tower,” Michael added thoughtfully. “The Mos- ‘lems built it upward, Pll wager odds on ’t, when they turned the chapel into a dungeon. Well for you they did. Small good it would do you, Demid, to enter the vault and pass through the door into the dungeon. They would crown you in my place on the stake.” “Aye,” responded the Cossack slowly as was his wont. ‘From the sepulcher the stair will take me high in the tower—the treasure of Sidi Ahmad is bulky, ivory, silks from India, gold plate from Persia— and knows what else. He would keep it in a place apart.” “Saw you such a place in the Wolf’s Ear?” Demid shook his head. “Faith! Ibnol Hammamgi found the tomb door closed against him. How then will you enter?” “Lali will come to the other side. has pledged it.”’ , It had been agreed between them that the Armenian girl was to make her way down the stair at the beginning of the second watch of that night, and open the portal to Demid. ‘The fox, Sidi Ahmad can not trust his officers with his secret—there is no faith between them—so the place of the treasure must be hidden. Lali will find out what may be discovered. At that hour the pro- cession of the Guilds—the weapon-makers, the gold spinners, the saddlers, will pass through the terraces before the palace as is customary on this day of the year. Many within the palace will have their eyes on the festival—on the lamps, and their ears will heed the kettledrums and pipes.” She oO COMmicloo (©