Adventure Magazine Cover — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

154 single eye of a fierceness far beyond his nature, was perhaps the only one whose ap- pearance really sorted with his trade. Mackett and James had the general ap- pearance of mariners. Lastly, Yberville, ~ vying in elegance with Blood, had more the air and manner of a Versailles exquisite than of a leader of desperate and bloody pirates. The admiral—for such was the title by now bestowed by his following upon Cap- tain Blood—laid before them the Ce brought by Brazo Largo. He merely added that it came opportunely inasmuch as they were without immediate plans. Opposition sprang naturally enough from those who were first and foremost seamen— from Pitt, Mackett and James. Each in turn dwelt upon the hardships-and dangers attending long overland expeditions. Hag- thorpe and Wolverstone, intent upon strik- ing the Spaniard where he most would feel it, favored the proposal, and reminded the council of Morgan’s successful raid upon Panama. Yberville, a French Huguenot, proscribed and banished for his faith, and chiefly intent upon slitting the throats of Spanish bigots, wherever and whenever it might be done, proclaimed himself also for the venture in accents as mild and gentle as his words were hot and bloodthirsty. Thus stood the council equally divided, and it remained for Blood to cast the vote that should determine the matter. But the admiral hesitated and in the end resolved to leave the decision to the men themselves. He would call for volunteers, and if their numbers reached the necessary quota, he would lead them across the isthmus, leaving the others with the ships. The captains, approving this, they went ashore at once, taking the Indians with them. There Blood harangued the bucca- neers, fairly expounding what was to be said for and what against the venture. -“T myself,” he announced, “have resolved to-go if so be that I am sufficiently sup- ported.”’ And then after the manner of Pizarro on a similar occasion, he whipped out his rapier and with the point of it drew a line in the sand. “Let those who choose to follow me across the isthmus, step now to windward of this line.” A full half of them responded noisily to his invitation. They included to a man the boucan-hunters from Hispaniola—who were by now amphibious fighters and the hardiest of all that hardy host—and most of the lum- Adventure ; : x bermen from Campeachy, for whom swamp and jungle had no terrors. When counted they proved to number four hundred and twenty men. The others, who held aloof, were chiefly fellows who by rearing or from late habit were followers of the sea, and who mistrusted themselves away from their ships. \ Brazo Largo, his coppery face aglow with satisfaction, departed to collect his bearers, and he marched them, fifty stalwart savages, into the camp next morning. The adven- turers were ready. They were divided into three companies, each commanded respec- tively by Wolverstone, Yberville—who had shed his fripperies and dressed himself in -the leather garb of the hunter—and a hard- bitten fighter named Christian. Thus they set out, preceded by the Indian bearers, carrying their heavier gear, their tents, six small brass cannon of the kind known as sakers, cans for fire-balls, good store of victuals—doughboys and strips of dried turtle—and the medicine-chest. From the decks of the fleet the bugles called fare- well and in pure ostentation Hagthorpe fired a salute from his guns as the jurgle ~ swallowed the adventurers. Ten days later, having covered a distance of some one hundred and sixty miles, they encamped within striking distance of their destination. The first part of the journey had been the worst, when their way lay over precipitous mountains, laboriously scaled on the one side and almost as labori- ously descended on the other. On_ the seventh, they rested in a great Indian vil- lage, where dwelt the king or chief cacique of the Indians of Darien, who informed by Brazo Largo of their object, received and entreated them with all honor and con- sideration. Gifts were exchanged, knives, scissors and beads on the\one side, against plantains and sugar-cane on the other, and reinforced here by a score of Indians, the buccaneers pushed on. ‘They came on the morrow to the river of Santa Maria, on which they embarked in a fleet of some seventy canoes of Indian pro- viding. But it was a method of traveling that af- fored at first little of the ease it had seemed to promise. ‘All that day and the next they were constrained at the distance of every stone’s cast to turn out, to haul the boats over shallows or rocks or over trees that had fallen across the channel. COMIC OOOKS (EO)