Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

178 the successful speculator in billetes, had been equally successful in keeping himself out of harm’s way till now, just after Diego had caught him skulking, and ordered him to the rail. And fear of his captain kept him there, though nothing could make him fight like a man. But now up rose before him, framed in blood-stained canvas, the fearsome figure of a Japanese warrior, whose loose-fitting armor made his crouching body seem mon- strously misshapen; beneath the crested helmet, his face was twisted into a hideous war-mask, from which his eyes, black and gleaming, shot terror into Arruego’s craven soul. Forgetting that he held a sword in his own hand, the poor wretch did the most dangerous thing possible; he turned his back and fled. Like a wildcat, Kurushima sprang after him from the top of the five-foot bulwark; and as he sprang, he raised his two-handed sword on high and brought it down with all his weight and strength on the other’s helmeted head. Through steel and scalp and skull the keen-edged blade shore its way, till the cloven morion’fell to the deck in two pieces. Tottering with hands out- flung, Feliz fell dead over the fragments of his own morion. Wrenching his sword free, the Daimio turned to face a seaman who thrust at him with a pike. With three strokes of in- credible swiftness, Kurushima parried the thrust, cut the pike-head from its staff, and sent the seaman’s own head rolling after it into the scuppers. This was too much— the other Spaniards bunched near shrank back before him and away from the rail, over which more Japanese, encouraged by their lord’s example, were clambering in growing numbers. “Oh, men of Tosa!’ shouted Kurushima. “The ship is ours!” “Hold them five minutes!” rang an answering voice in Spanish. “Hold them off five minutes, and we are free!” And rallying his weary crew, Diego de Torres leaped forward and crossed swords with Kurushima. Arch-types of the East- ern and Western warriors of their day, the two engaged in single combat, unhindered by the general mélée raging ’round them. No other Spaniard wished to meddle with the terrible Daimio; and no Japanese warrior would have presumed to interfere in a battle-field duel between two chiefs. Adventure Diego, fighting for time, stood on the defense; but Kurushima attacked with desperate speed and fury. He did not know what new and terrible means of resistance the galleon’s crew might use at any moment, and he could see his own men look anxiously up at the silent swivels, even as they fought. And ever in Kuru- shima’s mind was a vision of the San Gregorio, under his own command, sinking the tortoise-boat and freeing the way for Japan’s armies to march on to endless conquests. The thought that on the out- come of this combat hung the fate of Asia nerved his every blow. In all Japan, few swordsmen were Kuru- shima’s equal. His strokes sheared through the stoutest mail, his feints were dazzling, his sureness of eye and hand proverbial. With all his tremendous strength and skill, he cut and slashed, leaping back and forth to confuse his opponent. Now he struck for Diego’s head, now for his right shoulder, now for his left thigh, turning his blade in mid-stroke, till it seemed to fill the air about him with a shimmering mist. But wherever it fell, the Japanese sword beat and glanced off the parrying blade of the Spanish rapier. Never was the contact at such an angle that the edge of the heavy two-handed weapon could bite into and cut through the slender ribbon of steel which always met and turned it. The European’s supple wrist-play gave him a freedom and length of reach unknown to the Samurai, who held his long hilt rigidly with both hands. And ever as Diego parried, he studied the strength and weakness of Kuru- shima’s strange, silk-braided mail, designed to turn the edge—but not the point. Suddenly, as Kurushima heaved up his sword for a mighty blow, a cold, tingling pang shot through his exposed breast. His stroke stayed in mid-air, he glanced down, and saw Diego’s silver hilt pressed firmly against his breast-bone, the Spaniard’s arm outstretched behind it. With a sharp pull, Diego withdrew his rapier. A foun- tain of blood spurted after it; the long blade itself was bloody to the point. Kurushima strove to bring down his own sword, but instead, he heaved a long sigh and slid in a crumpled heap to the deck. At that very moment, two mighty columns of water, crested with shattered bits of wood, cordage and human fragments, spouted high into the air from under the COnnicloookxs (C@)