Adventure Magazine Cover — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

THE WAY OF SINNERS knew of our approach, the enemy sent for- ward no party to deliver a time-attack, and so confuse us at the beginning; I judged that this failure was due to lack of discipline —that the commanders, whoever they might be, could trust their men to hold to- gether under attack, but that the com- mands were too mixed for outflung ma- neuver. I considered the scene for some time; then, retiring the advance-guard and calling in the scouts, I returned to where the column waited, and prepared to act. The guns meantime had taken their position un- der the fringe of the trees; the cavalry I divided into two squadrons, one under Benedetto, the other under my oldest sergeant, and I sent them to the left and right of the enemy’s position, to conceal themselves as the guns were concealed, and at the proper time to deliver charges on the flanks. “But they will eat us!’ says Benedetto. ‘““Aye—with blood sauce,” and I hit him across the bridge of the nose with my steel gauntlet. ‘Obey orders, thou, or I’ll start the slaughter by hanging thee!”’ “They are three or four hundred on a flank, to our twenty-five,” says he dogged- ly, letting the blood run down his breast- plate as it would. “Ah, but Iam here. In token whereof, this!’ and I smote him with the gauntlet again. ‘“Now begone, ere I lose patience.” ‘“‘But—when are we to move? Who will give us the order?” asks the sergeant, salut- ing twice to make sure. “When their cavalry breaks ground and begins to move,” I told him. ‘Let them have the bombs—” I remembered here that unaware that our entry would be opposed, and counting on great store of powder in the castle, I had ordered the leaving of the bombs behind. ‘Ah, diavolo! No matter; the fame of our trick should be here by now; let us hope so. Each man take a stone the size of his fist, and throw it as if it were a bomb. Is that understood?”’ | “‘Aye, Captain,” says the sergeant, think- ing me mad. ‘“‘Then take positions. Benedetto, order the foot to advance to the end of the wood and halt.” While this was being done, I rode up to the gunners, and asked their sergeant if it would be possible to reach the enemy; he 163 was a wizard with gunpowder, that man; he said it would perhaps be possible, at the risk of bursting the cannon. “A bouncing shot, well understood, Cap- tain,” says he. “Aye. Fire the first now.” He put in a double charge, cocked the piece so that it seemed like to shoot a hole in heaven, and let fly; I watched the ball rise (strange, how one can see the things in flight, either from behind or in front, but it is better to be behind)—I watched it rise, I say, watched it begin to fall; and then lost sight of it until, of a sudden there was a stir, like the splash of a stone in a pool, amid one company of enemy foot. Like the rings from such a splash, moreover, I perceived movement spreading to right and left and forward in the ranks. ““Give them another!” He did; a better than the first, though it dropped short and advanced the rest of its journey rolling and hopping along the ground. It could easily be seen by those to whom it was commended, and it maleased them more than the sudden shock of the first. The front rank split, surged back- ward, and was already half on the run when the ball overtook its particular man and smashed his spine in; nevertheless, I saw that, so far, the officers had their men in hand; the movement was checked and the ranks stood firm. “Continue till they break,” says I, “and, then bring the pieces after us into the castle. Come at the rear of the column.”’ “Aye, Captain.” And all went most wonderfully as I had planned. My column of infantry, be it understood, was facing the center of their position, on which the balls of my guns were playing steadily, with dropping shots and ricochets; my two paltry detachments of cavalry were at their wings, unknown; and when, to avoid panic, the enemy tried to retire beyond cannon-range, the whole force moved at once. An undisciplined force, or one whose command is various, doth move awkwardly, and with confusion, especially if it be composed of two arms; the horse move too fast for the foot, and the foot too slow for the horse. They moved—they churned rather, and I perceived mounted men spurring about their flanks, trying to push them into order; one of these nobles was taken off his horse and flung into the midst of the mass by the COMICOOOe S (C@