Adventure Magazine Cover — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

62 “What talk is this?” The man’s cunning was written in every line of his thin face. “N ay, what have you seen? You had no key He read confusion in the girl’s flushed cheeks and lowered eyes, and nodded thoughtfully. His vanity prompted him to show to Lali greater riches than she had seen at the court, and suspicion impelled him to examine the door at the stairhead. Lali seemed to hang back, and he fancied that she was troubled. ‘“‘Come,”’ he said. “QO my lord!” Jal-ud-deen started up from his calculations. ‘‘The portent of the stars is dark indeed. I fear——”’ “Bah!”’ Sidi Ahmad had eyes only for the singing girl as he strode through the door. The guard was changing, and he took eight swordsmen with him into his chambers on the floor-below, leaving the same number posted without—for the guard was doubled that night. . The astrologer, having made his salaam, drew back to study his chart again. From the opening in the dome he stared down upon the lighted terraces where cordons of janizaries stood between the throngs of revelers and the palace. Tall minarets rose against the stars like so many spears upraised. A gong sounded the hour from the courtyard below and the heavy tread of soldiery answered it. Jal-ud-deen reflected that it was well the pasha’s anger had fallen upon the girl rather than on himself. WITH a key taken from his girdle Sidi Ahmad unlocked the door in his sleeping chamber and signed for the men to conduct Lali after him. One with a cresset torch went ahead, down a narrow stair that wound upon itself steeply, being built in a corner of the tower. At the landing opposite the dungeon Sidi Ahmad halted his followers and bade them await his coming or his call. Lighting an oil lamp that stood in a recess of the wall, he signed for Lali to de- scend with him. At the foot of the last tlight of steps he drew back a heavy curtain, and entered a vaulted chamber where the air was chill and heavy. Here he set down the lamp upon what had been once an altar of black marble. Drawing Lali with him, he stepped to a Adventure row of teak caskets placed upon bales of silk. One of the boxes he opened, disclos- ing to the gaze of the Armenian a mass of loose pearls. With the careful fingers of a miser he opened other caskets, showing rubies and sapphires and turquoise—gold ornaments, and rare, carved ivory. At the far end of the wall were heavy bags and Sidi Ahmad explained that they contained coins. He tossed Lali’s trinkets into one of the boxes and turned upon her suddenly. ‘So you were minded to escape from the tower and go hence to join the kazak! Nay, I read in your eyes upon the galley that you loved him, and my memory is long. Is it not true?” “Verily,” said the singing girl, lifting her head, ‘‘it is true.” And there was pride in her voice. Ahmad shrugged, might muse over leopard. “Eh, then I must buy you. price?” Lali looked at him and instead of answer- ing, pointed to a black cross set in the white marble of the flooring— “What gold can buy ¢hat?”’ “By the wrath of Allah!’”’ The Moslem frowned. ‘‘Here are strange words for a singing girl. Some bones of the accursed Emir George lie hereabouts and his crypt hath served me well ‘““Have you no fear of the wrath you have stored up against you, by entering here?” The eyes of the girl traveled ceaselessly over the walls of the tomb, searching for the outline of a door. But nothing was to be seen. Solid rows of bricks of dried mud stood on every hand, gray and crumbling with age. Cracks and gaps between the bricks showed only the dark clay behind. Lali had made the round of the chamber, and she dared not tap the wall to seek for the door, if one existed. With the guards within call on the stair she would not cry out, in the hope that Demid would hear, if he should be near at hand. If, indeed, the Cossack should ap- pear in the tomb now he would walk into a mare’s nest. Lali’s whole thought was to get Sidi Ahmad away before his suspicions were aroused, and yet he continued to watch her as if taking delight in her distress. If, she reasoned swiftly, there had been a door Sidi studying her as he a wayward hunting What is your COmiclboolks CO