Adventure Magazine Cover — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

32 of forms in the haze of moonlight—Tatikof, his long sword drawn, urging them on. Then he felt Karai stiffen against his leg. A wolf howled faintly, not faraway. Again the sound drifted through the open window, nearer. Then the door began to fly apart. Footsteps pattered over the floor behind him, and he turned with bare saber out- flung. ‘Toghrul panted at him. ‘Down the street the khanum comes. She cried out to me. Come now, Kazak!”’ Together they leaped through the hall, calling to the other man to follow, and Ka- rai,-wild with excitement, jumped upon the door when Kirdy threw off the last bar. They heard the boots of the Muscovites thudding behind them. ‘““Nent-en!” Kirdy cried. ‘Follow!’ He kicked the door back and ran down the steps that Karai leaped without effort. Several halberdiers, leaning on their long weapons, started up, and two horsemen gathered up their reins. Kirdy knocked down the first spear thrust at him, jumped aside from a second, cutting the man deep in the shoulder as he did so. Wrenching his blade clear, he parried a slash from one of the mounted boyare—a heavy man, too clumsy to wheel his horse fora second cut. He saw Karai leap silently at a third Muscovite—heard the fellow scream, and a pistol roar. Toghrul was before him now, speeding like a shadow through the gate posts. Down the street in a smother of snow the light sleigh of Nada was coming, a rider on one of the three black horses holding in the others. This, Kirdy thought, must be Karabek, and he found Nada. It was brave of the girl to come back for Toghrul. But he could not see Nada in the sleigh. Standing up, waving at him, was a young Cossack in a long black coat and a glittering girdle. Gloved, booted and armed, the Cossack might have ridden thus out of the Siech, the mother of warriors. Behind the sleigh, their reins caught in one of the youth’s hands, Kirdy’s two ponies reared and plunged, frightened by the clash of steel and roar of firelocks. The sleigh came abreast the gate as Kirdy ran up, and the strange Cossack laughed at him. By that laugh he knew Nada, though her long gleaming hair was hidden under the kalpak and the upturned collar of her coat. “Come,” she cried, drawing back to make HAROLD LAMB room for him. A second the sleigh halted, and Toghrul scrambled to the back of one of the ponies, jerking the rein free as he did so. A bullet whistled past Kirdy’s head, and over his shoulder he saw Tatikof whip- ping through the gate, his feet feeling for the stirrups that he had failed to grip when he leaped into the saddle. Kirdy acted almost without thought. He turned on his heel, ran at the Muscovite’s big stallion, while Tatikof snatched at the sword on his far side. He did not draw the sword. The flat of Kirdy’s saber smote him across the eyes—his leg was gripped by a powerful arm, and he was off-balance, half dazed by the blow. Tatikof fell on his back beside the stallion, and Kirdy, who had caught the saddle-horn, leaped up, finding the stirrups before he gripped the rein. Then he wheeled the powerful charger against the boyarin who had first fired at him, and who had followed Tatikof through the gate. Two blades flashed and clanged in the moonlight—the shoulder of the black stallion took the flank of the other horse, and the boyarin reeled, groaning. Calling off the raging Karai, the young warrior wheeled the stallion again, gripped firm with knees and rein, and raced beside the sleigh. “Nay, come with me, Nada! I go to the river gate.”’ He saw some of the men-at-arms run out, and a bullet or two whistled past without harm. The other servant must have gone down at the door because he was not to be seen. Nada clapped her gloved hands and sank down on the seat. “With the flat of the blade!” she cried gleefully. “In his beard Tatikof took it, and he went down like—like a speared boar. It was good to see!’’ The rider of the off-horse whipped on his three steeds, the bells of the arched collars chimed faster and faster. They began to gallop, and then to race through the silent streets, as leaves whirl before the breath of the storm. “Tt was so,” the men of the guard at the river gate reported to their captain, Mar- geret, the Frenchman the next morning. ‘“‘No vodka had been given us. But we saw them—three horses black as the pit, and the Cathayan standing up in his stirrups, with his hat gone and his eyes gleaming, and a Cossack in the sleigh singing like one of the Co DOOK C©