Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

176 by thick grass hawsers to her four consorts; and each of the five was double-anchored, bow and stern! The galleon’s impact had bent the line of junks, causing the two nearest the wreck to drag their anchors, till the Japanese craft were close up under the San Gregorio’s forecastle, one on either side. “Clear away that wreckage! cables!”’ Cut the GIL ROBLES and a dozen seamen swarmed down over the _ bows, = knife and hatchet in hand. But before they could sever a single strand, there erupted from the holds of the four uninjured junks a shrieking horde of naked brown men brandishing naked steel. ‘Those that were near enough leaped down with high-heaved blades; others dived over- board and swam round to the wreck, holding their swords in their teeth. Gil Robles split the first comer’s skull with his hatchet. But the odds were too ‘great; three of the galleon’s crew were literally chopped to pieces there on the wreck. Fighting furiously, the mate and the rest of his detail made good their retreat up over the bows, while the heathen hacked at them from below. At last they were once more sheltered by the high, square-built forecastle. Here they turned on their pursuers, and hurled the foremost foemen down into the sea. “Send forward the musketeers,” implored Gil Robles, swinging his dripping hatchet. “Swivels and musketeers!” But a roar of musketry from the poop told him the soldiers were busy aft. Well they might be. The Japanese flotilla astern was closing in on the trapped galleon as‘fast as oars could drive it. ‘Trapped she was, but not defenseless—the San Gregorio’s stern-chasers, loaded with a solid-shot and a bag of bullets each, smashed one crowded rowboat and made fearful havoc aboard three more. “Well done, Master-Gunner!” shouted Diego down the main-hatch. “Cease firing! Run in and secure your guns—the boats will be too close alongside to hit before you can reload. Close and make fast the port- shutters; then on deck, all!’’ A savage yell of triumph burst from the throats of the bloodthirsty swordsmen aboard the two leading Japanese craft. One to port and one to starboard, they Adventure swept up and made fast alongside the San Gregorio’s waist. The eager warriors on board them took no heed of the galleon’s topmen, who, having furled and stowed the fore and mainsails, lay out on the lower yards. Yet ready to the hands of those topmen lurked death and _ destruction. Knives flashed through lanyards, and a great iron cannon-ball dropped like a thunderbolt from aloft on each boat be- neath, smashing huge holes through the bottom-boards. Few were the men-at- arms of the first two boat-loads that did not go down with their shattered trans- ports. Those Japanese that had the chance to leap for the galleon’s main-chains, and the luck to get a hand-hold, pulled themselves up pluckily and bravely tried to scramble aboard. But at each tell-tale inward bulge of the baffling waist-cloths, a Spanish pike or sword-point would lunge through canvas and flesh together. Arrows tore through the galleon’s rigging. ‘A big negro on the main-yard fell screaming into the sea, a gaily-feathered shaft stick- ing out from between his shoulder-blades. Back scrambled his mates to the shelter of the round, high-walled fighting-tops; their trick had worked well, but it could’ be worked but once. ‘The rest of the Japanese flotilla had now come up, its archers loosing swiftly, its eager swordsmen ready to board. The Spanish musket-balls splintered their gunwales and tore through their armor, inflicting horrible, tearing wounds; but in spite of it, the sampans grappled the San Gregorio fore and aft, port and starboard, as many as could crowd alongside. The rest vomited their swordsmen over the side and into the already packed hulls of those ~ that were at close grips. ‘Trained to scale walls and surmount all obstacles, the gallant Samurai, burdened as they were with armor, swarmed up the sides of the galleon as easily as the naked men from the junks. Their keen swords slashed away the waist-cloths, now sodden with blood and stuck full of arrows. Only point or ball told against them; no cutlas edge could shear through their strange, loose-meshed mail of lacquered steel. Eight times the Japanese won a footing on the deck amidships. Eight times the murderer-guns from poop or forecastle COnniclooo S (C@