Adventure Magazine Cover — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

150 keeping me out in the rain. This is a man that hath run away from the duke’s guard—for fear of being hanged. Tell the lieutenant that.’’ The sentry did not whistle; instead, he kept silence for some seconds, and dropped the whistle; I heard it clink against his breastplate. ‘Pass, then,” says he. ‘‘Follow the right fork of the brook, and they are behind the hill.” Benedetto stretched forth his hand, and took the bridle of my horse. “T will lead thee,” he said. is easy to lose.”’ ‘‘The road “But—” says I. “Ah?” “Ts the border far?” I asked him. “Nay. Why?” “Because ’tis over the border I would be.”’ “But thou must sleep somewhere, and there are no inns for miles. Come, friend; thou shalt be welcome.” Now, of a sudden, the flesh of my back that had remained warm with the heat of my youth while rain trickled down it, was cold, and I felt the hair raise thereon; ’twas something in this man’s tone, so different in its seeming friendliness from that which he had used to me before, alarmed me. I remembered what Lucio, the sergeant, had told me of Pietro Uccello’s band, and their murdering of strangers for the joke of it; and with a wrench I pulled my bridle from Benedetto’s grasp, and turned my horse’s head. “Halt!” he snarled at that; and brought his hand from beneath his cloak, pointing the muzzle of a pistolet in my face. The sentinel, too, I saw as I glanced to one side, had seized the butt of his weapon and swung it about until it stared at me with its one black eye. “Come, friend Francesco,’ said my guide. “Thou’st come so far for thy convenience; this is not far to come for mine. Pass through yon gap in the hedge before me, and be wary, by that thy horse bolt not, for a bullet shall bolt faster. Avani”? I thought death awaited me along that fork of the brook and behind the hill; but if I went not, it was sure here; and so, with- out a word, I obeyed, and heard Benedetto and the sentry chuckle together as I passed. Then, close behind me, came the clip-clop- splash of my captor’s horse on the marshy F, R. BUCKLEY turf of the stream’s bank, and we fared forward for five minutes that seemed a year. The light was stronger now; I could per- ceive that many horses had passed this way before us, and that their track turned to the right by an oak-tree, leading toward the shoulder of a little hill. On this shoulder, I could see the gleam of armor of another sentry; like the first, resting his arquebus on its stand. Benedetto rode swiftly up beside me and wrenched my sword out of its loops. “Halt!” cried the sentry. My companion shouted his name, and we advanced cautiously abreast. ‘“‘And this other?”’ demanded the sentinel. “This is a soldier of the duke’s guard, who hath fled to escape hanging,” said Benedetto with—it seemed—a _ chuckle. As for the sentry, he regarded me sullenly; and then, meeting Benedetto’s eyes, smiled. “Pass, then,” says he. ‘But the captain is asleep.” “Ts the inner guard set?” “Aye. Of course.” “Then I will leave our visitor with them, while I go wake him. Forward, Messer Francesco Vitali!’’ The main camp of the troop was over the shoulder of the hill, and the inner guard was twenty ells beyond the sentry, on the outer edge of the bivouac. Bene- detto handed me over, saluting, to a tall, gaunt man with great black whiskers; spoke to him for some moments in an un- dertone, saluted again, and strode over to a sort of low tent, pitched on lances in the midst of the sleeping ranks. It was sickly morning; the new light shone on the puddle with a weak yellow-green, the soaked sod exhaled a low-lying mist, and the sky was of a wet gray. The men had no more than dozed throughout the night; it was no won- der that Benedetto’s first call into the cap- tain’s tent raised half the camp, shivering, on elbows. First, they stared at him, until he disappeared under the crossed lances; then they turned and stared at me; certain of them, cursing drearily, arose and splashed over to where I stood; whereat, with a mighty effort of the will, I commanded my teeth to stop their chattering, stood as up- right as might be, and regarded about me with as much contempt as I could summon. I think it worth mentioning that they did. not laugh at me; nor did they ask questions concerning my state from the whiskered GOMIGIOO S (C@