Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

24 “Here, D’Aylion, eth a prophet who had no honor in his own country. Leave the stripliing’s sword by the carcass of the sire. Now—” he considered the tableau atten- tively—‘‘the yokels of this coast may cudgel their brains, and no harm to us.” D’Ayllon nodded indifferently. “Still, signior, the son is living and may cause us to be harmed. And that Maestro Cabota——” ““Pfaugh! Cabota dodders to his grave, and the stripling we will silence m Londcn.” Master Thorne’s body was found within the hour by ‘Cabot, who came to pay his call, and the Orfordnesse folk wagged their tongues apace. They agreed that the cos- mopgrapher, being a man of dark belief and uncertain religion, had come to a fitting end. The Thornes were ever a wild lot. Some held that Ralph had slain his father, by reason.of the rapier seen beside the body, and the complete disappearance of the armiger who had come up from London. Although town and countryside were searched by the bailifs, no trace of young Thorne was to be had. Certain men who had gone down before midnight to the shore to watch the setting out of Sir Hugh and Richard Chancellor, and had ‘been talking to the shipmen wait- ing by the ‘boats drawn up on the strand, remembered that a strange youth had ap- proached them, walking unsteadily and to all appearances drunk. Assuredly he must have been drunk, since he offered to join the shipmen to go upon the voyage to Cathay. Te was a well set-up lad they saw in the faint fight, and the shipmen called him a lad of spirit. His soiled leather doublet and his features were smeared with blood— this struck them afterward—and he spoke thickly. A burly man from the ships, with limbs tke an ox and brass rings in his ears, haled the volunteer into one of the boats, and there he collapsed on the thwarts, perhaps from loss of blood, perhaps from the drink The other boat keepers argued that such a man would do them little good; but the boatswam with the earrings swore in a way that made the Orfordnesse folk stare that the Edward was short three wights and he would make a hand of the young yokel. Adventure CHAPTER VIII | PETER DISCOURSES A FORTNIGHT later Sir Hugh Wil- loughby’s ships had left the coast of England far to the south, and with favor- able winds were passing along Norway. Luck was with them for in a region where storms and mists were expected, they were able to keep in company. Every evening a cresset was kindled on the poop of the admiral ship, the Bona Esperanza, to mark its position during darkness, and every morning the two consorts would run up while the admiral ship lay to. Hails were exchanged, the number of sick reported to Sir Hugh, the course set for the day and a rendezvous appoimted in case of separation by a storm. This was the hour when the watch below came on deck, to harken to the daily fan- fare of trumpets, and to muster for prayers at the image of Our Lady. “Forby,” observed Peter Palmer, boat- swain of the Edward, “Sir Hugh be a man for discipline, aloft and alow. ’E’s sailed under the king’s colors many a time, and a rare, fine gen’leman ’e be. Brave as ever was. Though ’e’s no hand for pilot work or laying a course.” And the boatswain spoke with the voice of authority, having voyaged to the far seas, to Malabar and Zipangu in Portuguese ships. He approved strongly of Richard Chancellor, the master of the Edward. “Blast my hver, but ’e’s a proper man, steady and determined-like. ’E reads to us lads out of the Bible itself, and ’monishes us like a minister of God. ‘My bullies,’ says ’e, ‘forasmuch as all who sail the sea be standing on and off the port of the Al- mighty, we should stand by in readiness to face our Maker. ‘So,’ says ’e, ‘let me hear no blaspheming, nor ribaldry, nor ungodly talk upon this ship.’ “And a fine thing it be,” he concluded, “to have along of usa reverend gentleman as can grapple the —— himself. Now, me if it a’nt!”’ Peter Palmer knew his own mind, and was quite ready to speak it upon all occasions. He was built on the lines of the Edward herself, broad and solid of timber. Al- though he must have weighed close te two hundred and fifty pounds he could move about as quickly as the cabin boy. His freckled face was a mirror of good GOMmIGIOO S (©