Adventure Magazine Cover — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

66 He was too tired to feel the ache in his limbs, or the salty dryness of his throat. With his hands gripping the pommel, he let the pony have its head, and, looking back after a while, he puzzled over a red glow that rose above the black line of the wall of Aleppo. The palace of Sidi Ahmad was burning to the ground, but Michael was past caring. Dry dust of sand was in the air, stinging his eyes; the wind brushed the damp hair from his forehead; the glimmer of the stars through the haze over the desert grew to a flare of torches, and Michael pulled himself awake by a sheer effort of will, to see that the Cossacks had halted and were lighting flares to search for tracks in the sand to show the path they should follow. “Why do you talk,’ he muttered drowsily, ‘“‘when there is a debt to be paid?” A shaggy head loomed over him and a voice rumbled in his ear. “The little Frank is past his strength. I will see to it, but he hasa true thought. We can not bear the money to our brothers if we talk about the road, with Satan’s hunting pack at our heels.” Demid took the lead and they went on at hazard. Once more the saddles creaked, and the cold wind stirred about them. Michael swayed and went into a deep sleep but Ayub’s arm steadied him until the streak of dawn on their right hand showed them the first ridge and the valley through which the northern trail ran, full ahead. Here they breathed the horses and let them roll, until dust began to show on the desert floor behind them and they mounted the freshest beasts, going through the pass and striking out for the river Jihan, two miles in advance of the nearest Moslems. It was not yet dusk when they reached the river and forced the sweating horses across. ‘Their animals were done by now, but the leading pursuers were on camels that balked at crossing the river, and by the time that the horsemen came up, Demid was able to turn aside from the trail and hide his tracks in a rocky ravine. Safe for a few hours, they walked their horses, sleeping in the saddles. Before dawn they dismounted to eat a little and drink from the water-bags they had filled at the river. With the first light -Demid sent men to the nearest heights to Adventure try to place the detachments of janizaries that must be well up with them by now. After ascertaining their position and that of the nearest pursuers they set out, keeping to the clay gullies, for they were in broken country here, close to the foothills. Michael found that one of his saddle- bags was filled with heavy bits of gold. He took some up in his hand, wondering whether the treasure would serve them in the end. But Demid would not hear of abandoning it. Late that afternoon they entered the first fringe of timber, on the higher slopes of the mountains, and over their heads loomed the white peaks of the Caucasus. It was here that a youth in sheep-skins came leap- ing down toward them, crying eagerly that Ibnol Hammamgi was awaiting them in the nearest pass with fresh horses, and that fighting was in progress between the Turks and the Sivas tribe that had waited here to cover their retreat if they came back. Michael, in fact, soon heard the flicker of arrows in the brush and the neighing of horses. Not until then had he known how close the pursuit had drawn about them. But Demid greeted the chief of the moun- tain folk without comment and bade him draw his men back with them, for the Turks were in force at their rear. “T have brought back Lali, daughter of Macari,” he added, ‘‘do you bear her to the patriarch, that he may periorm the rites due to the child of a chieftain.” XII Where the road ends the warriors dismount, and when all have come up they talk iogether of the paths each one has followed; but of those who set out in the beginning upon the road, not all have come to the end. Aye, many have followed another path, and of these the warriors talk, saying over the names of those who will not take to saddle again. , : ‘HE sun grew warmer on the Cossack steppe, and the snow dwindled to gray patches; then grass came and the whole steppe was like a swamp, over which no army could move. Spring passed, and crops were sown and still no Moslem banners were seen crossing the frontier. When the wheat and oats were ripening, minstrels and Gipsies drifted in to the camps of the Zaporoghian Cossacks, where a nucleus of warriors were guarding the fron- tier. These wanderers from the sea peat word of Demid. COmiclbook (©