Adventure Magazine Cover — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

impact of his weight the door creaked ominously, and the watchers within saw fit to open the window. “Tchélomdo brodioul’” a heavy voice cried down at the Cossacks. ‘“The fore- head to you, master. We have done no harm. We are people who believe in God. What do you seek?” “Tam Ayub the Zaporoghian!”’ roared the giant, steam rising from his black sweat- soaked coat. “I must have a horse—three horses, for ours.” “Ekh ma, Master Ayub. By Saint An- drew and the good Saint Thomas, we have not a horse.” “How, not a horse?” A shaggy, bearded head was thrust out of the window. “We are innocent people, by all that’s holy. It is true we had some beasts, for the post service. But first the noble boyare and the splendid Polish knights came and took their pick; then the illustrious Cossack lords came and hitched what was left to their guns. In all the sloboda you will find no more than these dogs.”’ ““How long have the cannon been speak- ing?” “Since the sun was at the zenith, noble sir. At dawn the army of Zaporoghian Cossacks passed through our streets to give battle to the Poles and the boyare.”’ “Hark ye, innkeeper!” The warrior December 8th, 1926 called Ayub wrenched his wallet from his girdle and tossed it against the door, so that the jangle of silver coins was audible. “That’s for the man who finds us three nags, now—at once!”’ The head disappeared and the impatient Cossacks heard the low growl of voices in argument. When the tavern keeper looked out again, despair was written on his broad features. ‘Good sir, no horse is to be had.”’ The two Cossacks who had ridden four hundred versts in four days to be present at that battle looked at each other without a word and turned by swiftly mutual consent to the third. He was an old man with shrewd gray eyes. His long white mustache fell below his stooped shoulders, and the brown skin seemed stretched and drawn over the bones of his head. Through the tears in his sheepskins a red silk shirt was visible and his baggy trousers were spotted with tar and mud, quite disregarded by their owner, who was drawing tighter the girth on his sweating pony. He was Khlit, called the Curved Saber, and once he had been koshevoi ataman of all the Zaporoghian Cossacks. When he had finished his task he straightened and held up his hand. Straining their ears, Kirdy and Ayub made out a change in the reverberation of distant conflict. The cannon had ceased MICLOOOK C©