Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 14, 1928 — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

HIS SERVICE TO FOLLY. dizzy height, only to desist a moment later when he saw a creeping line of toiling humans emerge around a bend of the road below. Gazing down, he saw that they hauled a heavy log on wheels of a gun carriage, straining and shining as sweat poured from their naked skins. And, on a short bend of the road the load stuck fast, and not all the whip- lashing of overseers, nor their shouts and cries, served to budge the load. Basil estimated their number at thirty men, and could well understand how they had failed. But he was to see how Emperor Christophe drew su- perhuman service from the victims of his rule. Still swinging from the window and clinging by one hand and foot, he saw that the emperor and his suite were on the upper parapet, and Christophe had signaled by a gesture some command to the men below. There came a shrill yelp, and every fourth man of the toil- ing wretches on the road stood aside. The Citadel gates opened and a whole company of soldiers poured out. Basil waited no longer, but seizing the edges of stone blocks, made his way like a spider flattened against the wall from one block to the next on a jour- ney so perilous that a misstep had dashed him to the stone below. He had seen the flutter of a woman’s scarf at a window ledge, and a white arm lying on the gray stone. In five long minutes of his terrific climbing he had reached that ledge, heard a cry in a woman’s voice, and had drawn his body inside the frame. “ Basil—” Her voice, her sweet voice, her hand on his wrist, and in another moment she was in his arms and their lips had met. A soft sara- bande of laughter trilled near by. The mad dancer was laughing happily and whirling in her airy grace about the room while Basil drank in with hungry eyes the beauty of Violette. “You cannot stay here, Sweet.” “To-night I am to be presented at 221 court. Go now, beloved, the empress may come, and it would be death for you.” His hands had seized the ledge to swing himself down when there came a ringing crash. Looking toward the road whence the sound exploded, he held Violette from that sight. Of that toiling, suffering company who could not haul the tree bole up the road, every fourth man had been shot. So Christophe drove flesh and blood under the lash of fear and peril to per- form his dreadful tasks. Their black bodies, stained with gushing crimson, lay in the sun. ‘Their companions heaved and strained at the log which slowly moved forward inch by suffering inch. “Stay back, Violette. Don’t look below,” he said, and swung away, cau- tiously now, for the soldiers were re- loading their muskets and would at any moment start back to the gates. He had gained his own window and looked back, when an airy pink cloud sailed from Violette’s window, and the Petit Feu tossed kisses from both white hands to the sky. Then fingers gripped Basil’s ankle, and he was jerked into his own room, sprawling on the floor and looking his amazement at this treatment by Gefondo. “ Now, indeed, I know you wear no disguise in this cap and bells. A man who would risk his life like that to see a woman is a fool and worse. How fares the lady?” “Well, and not aware yet of her peril,” said Basil, crossing his legs as he sat on the floor. “ At the last fire of sacrifice lighted in the jungle,” said Gefondo musingly, “the Silent One voiced a prophecy. I have not your gift for riming words, but if I had it would run in this wise: “When love and madness enter the Citadel, Come storm and trouble and tolling death knell. “The Mad Dancer has been here before, young master, but it is the first EOPMICLOOO KS (E@)