Adventure Magazine Cover — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

144 The graybeard still hesitated. “But of habitude, sire, he doth sign the payment warrants on the privy purse, and—”’ “Ah. But see, Valdifiore; there shall be no telling of this affair abroad. When the warrant comes to thee, thou’lt retain it, as a false document; as to the wench’s talking, she scratched the Count Roberto’s face yest’re’en; without this money, she shall be unable to flee the country; and he'll seek her and stop her mouth for her, I’ll swear. So. Do thou as I say.” The count would seek her and stop her mouth for her! He would have her killed! “Sire—”’ says I, in horror. Alessandro turned and glanced at me; and in that glance I perceived that he had meant even that; the mouth of Rosa Sal- viati would be stopped with death; even as my own heart seemed to be blocked with ice as I saw the depths of this foul treachery. Meantime, the old treasurer, calm and obe- dient, was bowing his assent as if nothing mattered in the world save the sanctity of the ducal paper; if which were well, all must of necessity be celestial. “Ye are dismissed,” says Alessandro the First, Duke of Rometia, turning his back on us. We understood this as a sign of dis- missal and, as best we could, one for the trailing of his nightshirt, the other for the chill that seemed to stiffen his limbs, we went crab-wise, bowing, to the door. “Valdifiore!”’ called the duke suddenly, as we opened it to pass out. “Sire?” “Send that same warrant to Madonna Elisabetta, at my house in the country.” “Yes, sire.” When I left the cabinet, my captain knew me again; when he saw the medal in my hand, he smiled and nodded his head. “Thou'lt be lieutenant yet, my lad,’ he whispered. “Let Lucio lead thee home; F, R. BUCKLEY thou’rt deathly pale from thy scratch of the shoulder.”’ Lucio, too, was emarveled at the sight of my decoration; which, then and there, at the foot of the stairs, he must pin to my hat, discoursing to the gaping guard of the future that lay in store for me, which theme I cut through as we gained the street, with one question. ss “Who is Madonna Elisabetta?” “Oh, a whore,” says Lucio. ND as my service with the duke had begun, so it continued, until— Patience; I am not there yet; it is - Just that, having returned to that period in memory, I am as eager to escape from it as then I was in the flesh; but I must re- member that this history is to serve me as penance, not as pleasaunce— In my house, at whose door Lucio left me, I found Stella nigh to dead with anxiety; deserted by the neighbors who (judging by the number of dirty plates) had spent most of the day comforting her and eating. So had the duke’s business of various kinds pressed on others besides me, that none— not even Lucio—had thought to send the poor girl a comforting word concerning my absence; she was sitting before the cold hearth with a guttering candle, twisting her hands together in her great lap and staring at the doorway with wide frightened eyes. When I entered, she rose with a sob of relief, made as if to throw herself into my arms; and then, seeing my brave dress, halt- ed as if frozen. I doubt not that the neigh- bors, in the midst of their well-fed com- forting, had cast doubt on the military nature of my night’s employment. “Oh!” says Stella; and I heard all they had hinted, in that word. It seemed I must laugh (so justly had they hit the clout, and so widely had they missed it, in their stupid malice); and laugh I did, my shoulder shooting great arrows of pain down my back at each drawing of breath. Then I threw my hat on the table and pointed to the shining order on it. “See that,” I said bitterly. “The duke os not give forth Orders of Jesus Christ or—” Then I started to laugh again, being somewhat light-headed from my enfevering wound. I sat at the table, gurgling with mirth at the services for which his Highness did reward me; while Stella, with face of COMmMiCoooks Cc C@