Adventure Magazine Cover — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

1O annoyed him. So it was difficult to get a good sight of his face again. “If a word of this order passes beyond your lips, Ivak,”’ he warned in broken Rus- sian, ‘you will wake up with a pistol ball in your brain.” “Ekh!”” TJ lifted the bag of silver and tossed it on the table. “Then I beg your Excellency to keep the money for me. A dead man can’t spend anything, even a copeck.”’ The smoke had cleared away enough for me to know that the Empress had not is- sued the order, or the Moskyas*would have been bolder with their words. Some one else had a quarrel with Paul Jones, and I thought of the English officers who loved him only as dogs love wolves, and whose ships he had burned, besides taking from their grasp a high command in the Russian service. Before his coming the Empress had listened to the advice“of the English col- onels of the sea when she wanted to make war with her ships. Why did I return the money? Well, it weighed on my spirit. Better if I had kept it—-much better. I saw the watery eyes of the prince blink as if something had come up out of the ground under his nose. And when I went out into the hall I heard the door close, tight this time. B} AT John Paul’s lodging all was Sem quiet; the two Tatars were snoring in the stable, the boxes of luggage were packed in the courtyard, and John Paul was writing a letter in his room up- stairs. He was always writing letters, though none were ever delivered to him. He had no body servant in Russia, and so, the door being open and unguarded, I sat down on the sill to smoke my pipe and re- gret that the rix-dollars were no longer mine. Presently to the door came two women, one old and bundled up and the other straight and young. She had a thin face, pale under the paint that the Moskya wo- men use, and her hood was thrown back to show coils of black hair. They wanted to ask the American for work to do—sewing. I told them to go to another door in the street because we had no need of sewing. Then they began to argue and the younger one said they had had nothing to eat that day. Overhead, the American stirred and came down to see what was hap- Adventure pening. The old one drew back, but the girl addressed him boldly in some kind of French, I think, and he shook his head. The girl took his hand and put back her cloak and smiled, trying to slip past him into the house. But he would not permit it, giving her some money instead—I do not know how much. Then she jumped up on - her toes and kissed him, and went away to where the crone was waiting. John Paul returned to his writing because I heard the scrape of his pen. I was glad the women had gone because every minister of Petersburg had a regi- ment of spies and the foreign nobles had nearly as many, and it is an ill place where a man can be watched without knowing it. The great clocks of the towers had struck many times when wheels creaked up to the house and an equerry of the palace reported that a tarantass belonging to her Majesty had been brought for the American to use on his journey. As Paul Jones was asleep by then, I went out to look at the tarantass, which was a long, narrow wagon with big wheels, leather bound. In front and rear were places for footmen to stand, holding on by straps. A sloping roof covered it like a house and within was room enough for two to sit or recline but not tostand. The windows were small and heavy shutters closed them. : Two pairs of matched bays were hitched up, one pair to the shaft, the other to the traces. I was very sleepy by then, and dozed a bit until John Paul woke me up. ‘“Stuppat, Ivak,’’ he cried with a smile. “Forward!” I was angry that he should have found me asleep, when dawn was streaking the sky, and I cursed the Tatars a bit when I found that he had been to the stables and had the horses fed before waking me. We were ready by the time Edwards rode up, yawning, with his body servant and a led horse with double packs. All the servants of the pal- ace had gone except the equerry and the two postilions. For a while we delayed while the two officers talked, and John Paul went up to the /arantass and glanced inside carelessly though he could have seen little in the faint light. “TIvak,’’ Edwards called to me, “‘here’s a of amess. The American will not ride in the carriage of the Empress. He wants to make the journey in a saddle. We can not send back her Majesty’s gift.” DOOLK (C©@