Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 167: what you’re looking at

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

_Two Strong Men the victorious Koreans. But most of them were slain, fighting or fleeing, so that the chroniclers of that day have declared the sea was red with their blood. But Kurushima did not flee. Inwardly raging, but steady and skilful as in victory, he took upon himself the honor of Japan. Handling his own long, open boat smartly, he offered his broadside to the enemy’s ram, swung round as it came on, and brought her right under the overhang of the ironclad’s starboard beam. With a joyous yell, the men of Tosa swarmed up on the turtle’s back, lusting to flesh their heavy swords. But their fierce cries soon changed to shrieks of agony, for the curved iron deck was studded thickly with sharp spikes and spear-heads, on which the help- less boarders were impaled. Kurushima alone was luckier. Leaping up at an open port, he succeeded in grasp- ing one of the great gilded fangs in the lower jaw of the dragon’s mouth before his own boat was left behind. Pulling himself up with his left hand, he took the sword from between his teeth and delivered a mighty overhand blow at a dimly seen form inside the port. He had the joy of feeling his blade shear through flesh and bone and seeing it come back dripping. Then the reloaded gun was run out through the port; the lower lip of its muzzle struck the Daimio squarely on his helmeted fore- head and knocked him senseless into the sea. KURUSHIMA’S eyelids fluttered twice, and opened wide. He felt " weak and faint. His fingers found the sleeping-mat on which he lay; his eyes saw, but did not comprehend the pine-tree which sheltered him, and the six-foot fence of canvas raised about the tree on spears thrust upright into the ground. For a time his brain did not grasp the meaning of these things; then, memory and under- standing dawning in his mind, he ground his teeth in humiliated pride. The savage, hopeless battle against the tortoise-boat; the crunch of the monster’s ram against the ribs of his doomed ships; the overwhelming defeat; his own desper- ate, futile attempt to snatch victory from the teeth of destruction, and the crashing blow that had flung him into oblivion—all came back upon him now, with accumulated bitterness. Japan had relied upon him, and he had failed her! Now he lay here, 165 rescued he knew not how, cared for by folk he had not seen, but alive, alive, when he should have died with his brave sailors! There was only one course for a beaten soldier, a dishonored Samurai. With hands that would scarcely obey the command of his brain, he fumbled for his dagger, fixed in the resolution to commit kari-kari, that he might not live continually reproach- ing himself for the stain of his defeat. But at the sound of his first feeble stirring, a little man in a gray kimono stepped from behind the pine. He was short, this man, even for a Japanese; barely five feet tall, and as slightly built as a child. His face was that of an in- credibly old and wrinkled monkey; but the eyes which burned in it were those of a god. Whoso met their glance knew himself in the presence of his master. Kurushima started violently, and turned his face away. It was Hideyoshi himself, the all-conquering dictator of Japan. Reading the Daimio’s intention, as he was wont to read the minds of men, Hide- yoshi raised two fingers in a gesture of restraint. “You shall not slay yourself, Kuru- shima,” he commanded. “You are to kill the crew of the tortoise-boat instead, and sink their iron monster in the sea.” “But how?” gasped the astonished Kuru- shima. ‘‘How can I do this, when I have already failed?” “By returning to your province of Tosa and playing go-in your castle at Urado,” Hideyoshi replied enigmatically, and sat on the floor beside the sleeping-mat. ‘Do not try to rise, for the fever has scarce left you. It is a fortnight since you were brought here. One of your sailors kept you afloat in spite of all your armor, and drew you to a piece of floating wreckage, whence you were taken into the ship of Miyosi of Izumo. That is how you were saved, and this is how you may serve Japan: ‘We must have a great, strong. ship, carrying heavy guns, to sink the tortoise- boat; otherwise the war can not go forward. We build no such vessels of our own. I have tried to buy two from the Portuguese in Macao, but they will not sell. Only one other source remains. “Every year, at this time or a little later, a huge ship like a castle in the sea sails northward past the coast of Tosa. This COnmniclooo S (C@