Adventure Magazine Cover — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

10 HAROLD LAMB creaking of leather and muttered words of the sergeants had ceased, Khlit rode out in front of the Black Kosh. Although he could see no more than the first lines of the leading sotnia, he knew that some five hundred riders were drawn up in place waiting for his next command. “Pvar Kosh sably pet! he _ roared. “Swords up! The salute of the regiment!” A sudden scraping of steel, a rustle of heavy coats, and the firelight from the gate of the tavern yard gleamed on upflung sabers. But Khlit did not take the salute himself. The Cossack who had reined in the sled at the gate snapped his whip and the three horses plunged forward, passing the motion- less ranks, and vanished into the white curtain where Ayub waited with his ten. Loboda had taken for the last time the salute of his Cossacks. “Sheathe sabers! Dismount.”’ With a word to the sergeant on the flank of the first squadron Khlit trotted back to the inn-yard where the hooded priest and Kirdy were standing by the hissing embers of the fire. “Hat, batko—Hi, little grandfather,” the new ataman said, “‘tell me of this Archfiend who has broken faith with the brotherhood, and of the battle this day. Be swift, be- cause we ride forth at any moment.” CHAPTER II THE TALE OF BATKO ANDRIEV maaHEN Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of 3} Muscovy, Lord of Novgorod, and of Sibir, died some twenty years mates) before, he left in the world two sons—an elder, Feodor and a lusty young- ster Dmitri. He left, too, a councilor, Boris Godunov, wise beyond his generation and ambitious. Feodor was saint-like and weak. Boris reigned as regent in Moscow until the ailing Feodor passed to his grave. And a courtier of Boris’ was believed to have slain the boy Dmitri. At all events, Dmitri van- ished, and in the next years it was seen that a curse was on the land. Famine stalked from the tundras of the north to the deserts of the south. Men said this was retribution for the deed that opened Boris’ path to the throne. Dmitri, the last prince of the line of Rurik, had been slain. And when the usurper Boris died—as he soon did—men said that the murder of Dmitri had been a curse upon him. There was now no one to sit in the eagle throne of the Kremyl at Moscow. The boyare would not tolerate the son of Godu- nov. The time of trouble began. Then Dmitri reappeared, a living man, at the gates of Moscow. Out of the Monastery of the White Lake he came—where he had been sequestered since he was a child. He had broken his vows as a monk and had wandered off to join the brotherhood of the Zaporoghian Cossacks. A bold rider, a wild spirit at revelry, and a youth of wit and daring, he had won his place in the hearts of the Cos- sacks. From their camp he had gone to Poland, to the powerful King Sigismund, who had ambitions of his own. Dmitri’s name had remained a secret until then—until, gravely stricken by sickness, he had confessed his origin to a Jesuit priest, saying that a slave child had been slain by mistake for himself. He had shown a jeweled cross given him by his parents, explaining that servants had hidden him in the monastery during the life of Boris Godunov. Whether or not the king of the Poles believed his story, Sigismund saw at once that Dmitri would be a weapon in his hand. Dmitri was honored, and at the news of the death of Boris, was sent into Muscovy with an army of Polish nobles. He summoned his old companions, the Zaporoghian Cos- sacks, and they rallied to him. Battles were fought, but the boyare of Moscow were as ready to receive the young Dmitri as to fight against him. The gates were opened to him. Over a land famine-ridden, among a stricken people, Dmitri rode laughing to his throne. The widow of Ivan was sent for, and embraced him, acknowledging him for her son. It seemed as if the time of trouble were past and done with. Dmitri plunged into the task of ruling as if it had been a new pastime. He was Tsar —autocrat of many million souls. Instead of riding in the imperial cortége, he galloped through the streets on his Kabarda horses; he drank deep of nights, sitting with the foreign officers. Sham battles between the stolid Muscovite regiments and the German mercenaries were his pleasure. Where the holy images should have stood in his COmiclbooolkks.c©