Adventure Magazine Cover — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

154 needed repair after the battles of those days!—and three times I had to replace from my own purse horses that had been killed under me. Moreover, it was impossible that a woman, much less a child, should be with us on the march; and that meant living quarters in Venice, where rents were very great and the cost of food greater still. It was not until I became captain, and en- titled to one-third of all our gains, that I dared think the time had come, and then it was three years since I had heard word of Stella; she could not write, and the messen- gers I had sent—soldiers going homeward, or to new wars—returned not to give tidings by word of mouth. Perchance she was dead, and the child with her; perchance the moneys I had sent her had miscarried, and she believed me dead—or faithless. Once I had thought on the matter, the road north- ward seemed very long until I could de- spatch a messenger from my own troop to her; and the time seemed longer still until, having departed with a sum of money enough to escort Stella to me, he returned. He returned alone. We were in camp near Venice, and it was night when he came to my tent—a real tent served the captain now; one taken from a duke in fair fight, in which a dozen big men could have stood erect; no poor affair of crossed lances. I was at the table, I remember, studying a map of the country where, it seemed, we were next to campaign, when the sentry an- nounced the messenger’s return. Poor fellow, he came in timidly, hat (he had gone disguised) in one hand, and the bag of gold I had given him in the other, blushing even through his whiskers and the mud which spattered his face. “Well?” I demanded. “May it please the Captain,’ man, ‘“‘the lady—er—” “What? DeadP” “No, may it please the Captain. She is very well, and so is your honor’s son; a young devil, they tell me, walked at nine months, and now there’s naught in the house safe from him but he will smash it. ’A had his face all tore to ribbons the day I saw him, from fighting of the cat.” ‘What is his name?”’ ‘Antonio, may it please your honor.” Antonio! Named after her father, then; not afterme. Before I knew it, I had bitten my lip.so that I winced. “Well?” ? says the F, R. BUCKLEY My messenger twisted his hat; then stepped forward and laid the bag of gold delicately on the table. “My lady—er—” he said, “told me to tell your honor that she would not come.” It is from professed teachers, and with much pains, that we learn such petty tricks as writing and ciphering and sword-play; but I have ever found that the things truly im- portant to be known, are imparted by things or by events rather than by persons; and in cavalry charges rather than in class-rooms. Now, it was my throat-muscles taught me suddenly and forever, that no man knoweth his own feelings; for though meseemed ’twas little to me whether Stella came or not, these did suddenly contract till I was like to choke; it was as if my heart had flown up to be crushed between them; moreover, a darkness came before mine eyes, and the sounds of the camp outside fluxed to a roar- ing in mine ears. It was another voice than mine own that, from afar off, I heard demand of Varchi— “Why not?” “Does the Captain give me permission to speak?” : I nodded. “Then she said that she found herself well enough as she was, and that she would not live, or have the boy grow up with, a common ruffian that wandered up and down the country in rags, murdering folk. Your honor’s pardon. That was what the lady said.” I had strong envy to burst out laughing. Stella had been content enough when I had been in the guard. A ruffian indeed, and common, and a murderer! These were not the head and front of my offending now; nay, ‘twas the wandering up and down the country, and the rags, that kept her in her father’s house. “Was that all?” “Nay. With permission, I told her that your honor was not poor, and that she and the child were to inhabit Venice. But ’twas of no avail. The lady thinks us the kind of folk that are hanged by waysides, in which belief the signora her mother did woundily encourage her, saying that it would bring discredit on the family.” Now I burst into laughter outright. God wot I was not then what later I became; but after the two last campaigns, to think of an armorer’s family disgraced by relation with Francesco Vitali was droll. Even the GOMIGIOO SS C©@