Adventure Magazine Cover — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

68 not sleep under the same sky. Bind thy wounds, that they do not open—choose from my herd what pleases thee, and go. Yet if thy rein is drawn again to the Aliyn Juz, the place on the white horseskin of my yurta is open. I have said it, and my word is not smoke.”’ Aware that this was a favorable moment to leave, and that the good nature of the old man might not last, Kirdy placed his hand to his forehead and lips. ‘And the woman!” Tevakel Khan ob- served suddenly. ‘‘What is to be done with her?” “She desires to go with me.” “Then thy peace will be troubled, be- cause she came from the camp of thine enemy. It would be better to slay her with thy sword—thus!”’ He moved the simitar that lay across his knees significantly. “Nay, she is a Kazak, and her father is the master of the wolves, thy friend.” “Allah!” Tevakel Khan considered Nada, and thought that here was a matter of wonder. It seemed to him that this feud was no ordinary pursuit of blood, but a struggle of wizardry. He chose rather to hear the ending of it than to have a share in it him- self, and he gave Kirdy leave to go. When the wounded Cossack and the young girl walked away through the charred camp, the sun was near setting, and the red light brought to the mind of Tevakel Khan another matter, most vital. His faded eyes gleamed, the wrinkles in his broad face deepened, and he bade his sons bring to him the Uighur scholar who did his writing. When the native was seated at his feet, thin brush and paper roll in hand, the mas- ter of the Goden Horde began speaking. “Write thus! To Arap Muhammad Khan of Khiva, lord of dead wolves and king of grave-jackals, greeting from his foe Tevakel Khan of the Altyn Juzl “Understand that upon this day, the fifth of the month of the Ox, I mounted and rode against thy camp and thy son Ilbars Sultan and thy warriors, sword in hand. “Thou couldst not see the flames devour thy tents, thy heroes overthrown and trampled, their heads piled into heaps. “Thou couldst not see thy wise men and wizards fleeing like sheep, brother parting from brother—thy horses taken by my grandchildren, thy weapons cast before my HAROLD LAMB tent pole, thy standard the plaything of girl-children—nor the skull of thy son Ilbars Sultan that was, a drinking cup ready to my hand. | “Since all these things thou couldst not see, and since not a man of thine hath escaped to bear thee the tale, I, Tevakel Khan—lI tell it thee!”’ This was the Tatar’s valedictory to the hated Turkoman, and when he had satisfied himself that Al-Tabir did not understand the Uighur script, Tevakel Khan gave the writing to the interpreter of dreams to bear to Khiva, instructing several of his warriors to accompany the Persian as far as the first outposts of the Turkomans. CHAPTER XVII THE GATE IN THE MOUNTAIN a) 1 WAS several days later that Kir- mi dy and Nadacamped near a Tatar cemetery—a place of gray, moss- coated rocks, and dense rushes— and listened to a harangue by Arslan, the ax-: man, who had offered to accompany them. A half dozen rough-coated ponies grazed outside the firelight, with the bay stallion that the girl had kept. Their packs now held little except meat and salt and Arslan’s cooking implements, and furs. Squatting at a little distance from them, the Tatar spoke gravely, his hideous face outlined by the glow of the fire against the loom of a rock. “Kat, it is so. Here the grazing land ends and the tayga, the thick forest begins. After the rains, it was a small matter to follow the trace of thy enemy; but in the forest a trail is lost if it be three or four days old.”’ Kirdy merely nodded, and Nada, lying outstretched on a bed of moss, hands clasped behind her head, looked only at the canopy of stars that seemed nearer now they had left the mists of the plain behind. Arslan peered at his master uneasily. “Thou hast seen. Once, in the first day thine enemy sought to turn west. He fell in with riders going to the camp of the khan. They knew him not. They sold him a sheep and perhaps other things. As far beyond this spot as a man can see, thine enemy the Fanga dismounted. His com- panion cooked part of the sheep. The horses rolled and grazed. Co DOOK C©