Adventure Magazine Cover — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

The Great Todescan’s Secret Thrust would be called masters brought together in one pit and matched as cocks are in battle royal. Aye, the talk is now of the peerless Narvaez of Madrid. Yet have I known others as magnificently spoke of. There is Petty Jean the Burgonian, look you— and the Seigneur St. Didier of Provence. And we hear of Caizo the Neapolitan and Tappa Milanese—and of Mynheer Jo- achim, best famed as the Great Almayne —and I have known Meister Eisenkopf, alias Mastro Capoferro of Bologna—a val- lant! Valiant? They are all valiant as cocks, on their own ground! Ever, when I hear of a new mighty peck-and-spur, I mar- vel what would happen of the last, could they both meet on the same dunghill! I knew one, especially, of late—and, body 0’ me!—were I a youth again with limbs and eyes and blood fit for prowess; were I one of those that are ever readier with proof by stoccado than with word argument, with slap of cloak at the face than with sweep of plumed hat—”’ He struck Beckett on the shoulder with the mutilated hand, in friendly mockery, to emphasize his words and, at the same time, not to leave the eager boy on the right out of his amenity, gave Wyatt a sly thrust of his wooden leg under the table. Then he proceeded: ‘Were I one of your wild cats, say I, ’tis not to Don Lewis, nor to Thibault of Antwerp, nor yet to Cavalcabo of Rome that I would hie me —though Cavalcabo was a man ere he was slit to the heart by one Fabricius, a Danish gentleman, all about a matter of wager in fencing argument. To none of these, but to one like Maistre Todescan of Geneva.” Now, it was singular to note how, at this point, both the scholars flung a furtive glance toward each other, arrested midway, and modestly drooped again upon their can. Singular, too, the abstract air they assumed; and the tone of indifference in which Dick Wyatt presently asked: ‘And what countryman was he, worthy Captain?” The veteran who, lost in fond introspec- tion, had been twirling his tankard to stir up the last drop of sugar, tilted it finally, smacked his lips, and was off: “Would I could say of such a man-queller he is an Englishman! But no. They call him Todescan. Ho, ho! I once met a cor- poral in Piedmont they called Espingola, who was the longsword man of a German 2 583 company! Now—an he and my Todes- can were not within the same skin—but tis no part of an old soldier’s work to rake up tales! So, Todescan, from Provence, and a Huguenot—let him have it so, I say! ‘“‘Anyhow he is a great man in Geneva, provost-of-arms, trainer of the town compa- nies, accepted citizen. . . . Aye, aye, those long-head burghers, ever thinking of their ravening neighbors in the mountains of Savoy, have gaged the worth of such a man! Espingola was a good rogue, stuffed with fighting tricks as a brush is with bristles, and the simplest of them worth a Jew’s eye. . . . Lodescan sings psalms, hath no variety in his swearing, and holds an even prospect of not dying in his boots after all! And the youth of Geneva sucks knowledge out of him as a weasel sucks an egg! But,” added the speaker slyly, as he marked the chang- ing visage of the young Templar, “rest ye merry, masters, they are little likely to cross the silver sea to contest it with Saviolo’s scholars for the succession of Saviolo’s honors!” Beckett rose suddenly. “T cry you mercy, Captain,” he said, tak- ing up his rapier from the wall and slinging it briskly back to its carriages as if moved by a mighty haste, ‘‘I would we could invite you to a friendly bout on the scaffold; but since it can not be—Bellona having marked you too often for her own—why, then, give you good den, Signor Strongi’th’arm!”’ The Captain rose upon his stump, made an elaborate congée, and stood, with good- humored mien, watching the young man salute his comrade and stride out of the door in right dapper deportment. When the last inch of the smartly cocked rapier scabbard, neatly draping a fold of the cloak, had dis- appeared round the corner, he himself called for his bilbo and cape; and as he flung the patched folds with noble gesture about his old shoulders, he found Dick Wyatt at his elbow. “Ah, fare ye well, young sir,” said he genially. “Shall ye take advice? Then, till your locks are blanched and rare, like these, never believe you have that skill, not only in your rapier play but in any art mili- tary, which is not some day to be caught ina trap. Now, I mind me, being in Genoa, the year of the great Barbary sailing, there was mighty talk of a new-fangle kind of fire- poe, and——” COMiICLOOCkKS. CO