Adventure Magazine Cover — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

5A HAROLD LAMB Aware that he was being watched and that hesitation would avail him nothing, Kirdy lifted the scabbard in his left hand and raised the flap of the kzbitka—the no- mad wagon-tent. A fire of camel dung glowed in the center of the floor on its clay bed. The space around it was carpeted, the sides filled with bulky leather sacks that looked like head- less giants huddled together and smelled both sour and pungent. From the far side of the fire a figure rolled out of a rug. “By the Ninety and Nine Holy Names! By the beard of Ali, from whom I am de- scended on the right side—my heart rejoices and my spirit is uplifted at sight of the prince of swordsmen, the White Falcon!” It was Al-Tabir, the interpreter of dreams, and there was no doubt of his joy at beholding the Cossack. He drew off the youth’s soggy fur mantle and flung his arms around him. “Now may Allah grant thee increase of joy. I wasted, in sorrow—the blossom of hope was killed by the frost of calamity—” “Enough. What seek ye here, Al- Tabir?” “Seek? Iamsought. Iam the leaf that drifts down the river of happenings. Hap- penings! I have fed upon disaster—” “Ts there aught to eat in this yurta?” *‘Aye, and to drink.” Al-Tabir made a wry grimace, and Kirdy saw that his broad, pale cheeks were indeed wasted, and his cherished beard, that ran from under his chin to his ears, ill-kept. ‘Behold, O youthful Kai Kosru!” He took up a lacquer bowl and slipped the thong from the vent of one of the great sacks with a skill that hinted at considerable practise. ‘““Mare’s milk, sour and fermented.” Kirdy gulped down the warm and heady liquid, which he knew was food as well as drink, and Al-Tabir, after a mournful al- lusion to the vintages of Shiraz, followed his example. “Tt brings oblivion,” he said, with a sigh, ‘Sf you drink enough.” “Where is Nada?”’ demanded Kirdy, who had no sympathy with oblivion. ‘Where? Nay, she is lost; she is no long- erat my side. A7-a, an ocean of the nectar of beauty, a rose-heart—”’ “Hast thou seen her—dead?”’ Something in the quiet voice of the young warrior made the Persian roll his eyes around, and he noticed that Kirdy gripped the ivory hilt of the curved sword until his arm trembled. ‘Taking this as a warning, the interpreter of dreams hastened to ex- plain. “Nay, I rode with her to this place. Then she bade farewell, and now the false Shah is at her side.” “Whor’’ Al-Tabir glanced fleetingly at Kirdy’s sword-hand, and struggled inwardly. “The lord who is called Otri-pief.” Seated on the rug nearest the fire, mois- tening his throat ever and anon with the draft that was not a vintage of Shiraz but brought oblivion, the interpreter of dreams told Kirdy all that had passed since they left the Wolky Gorlo. ‘‘Now when I drew my reins from the dogs-without-eyelashes* I pressed on swift- ly, desiring to come up with the woman who had gone before me. Solitude is evil and solitude upon this northern plain is worse. By favor of the All-Compassionate and by the fleetness of my gray Arab, I did over- take the woman called Nada when she had lost thy trail and was searching hither and on—’”’ “She followed me?” asked the Cossack quickly. “‘As a brown-winged falcon a hare. But thy trail was no more to be seen. Nada’s brow grew dark as a storm-cloud, and she sought until the light also had gone.” Kirdy groaned and beat clenched fists on his knees. He had suspected that the No- gais might decide to turn back after him, and had been at some pains to hide his tracks in a network of pools that first day. “‘Nada was clad as a Kazak youth,”’ went on the interpreter of dreams with a sym- pathetic glance at the warrior, “‘and she was beautiful as a Circassian boy; she also had food, and that yataghan that hung upon the wall of her father’s house. She was angry, but she took compassion on me and shared bread and salt. Then she said that since thy trail was lost she would turn to Otri- pief, because it would come to pass that by companying with the Muscovite lord she would see thy face again—”’ “Let no more than one lie escape thy lips, Al-Tabir, and thou shalt taste steel in thy throat.” “By the beard of Ali, by the Ka’aba, and my father’s grave, I swear that these words *The Nogais. COmiclbooks.c© 5}