Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

66 Adventure =3 rT? ath - * SF $ a quarrel on you. A fight with the — f “T trust you will help it with a steel eae blade then. At what hour will it please king’s fiscal and I would leave behind | Soe your Excellency? I fear it must be early, me tomorrow all the Fonseca family and cae for I leave with Don Francisco in the the governor as well banded against me. ey morning, when, if there be justice with Now I am very sure that nothing can ioe the saints, the king will have to appoint delay us tomorrow. God send yott good 2S ” : ” ase another fiscal. luck, Andres de Avilez. ae The crowd opened and closed again “And you too, seiior.” 2g behind him as Coronado pushed his way = p 3 Sade through the throng. NDRES went to his room, a large, } yt “You, Andres! And Fonseca! Brawl- bare apartment, furnished simply y Ls a) aay AP ie es ’. ie Ti "_. = J _« Fes eip A eat aren $n (a q Ky Aaa ‘ ANON } an UEP US EOC Se ™ % ey " tir 4 { a || 7 ,) ‘ : * ea edb hat ing? And before natives? This will | never do! What means this?” “Nothing, Don Francisco. This very sober and most polished fiscal of the king has been pleased to beat an old - man, to strike the Sefiorita Acasta in the face when she asked for mercy for him and to invite me*to a party. I have accepted.” a - “Tt shall not be.’’ Coronado’s voice grew stern. “Andres, have I not had trouble enough of my own but you must cause me more?” He drew Andres to one side. “You are not a thoughtless boy, An- dres. We can not answer with a sword- thrust all who offend us. Remember Pedrarias. We can not go into the wil- _derness tomorrow and leave behind us an enemy powerful for harm. That was what killed Balboa, what deposed Cor- tez, what murdered Pizarro. No, no, my prince of scoutmasters, you must give me your word that you will not fight with the fiscal and that you will go to your quarters and stay there till I summon you.” _ Every word carried conviction with it. Coronado was right. The welfare of the expedition could not be imperiled to enough after the fashion of the day, with a huge bed of wood and rawhide, a chair and an immense olla for water. “A pretty mess—very nearly.” He unhooked his great cloak of dark yellow cloth lined with lighter satin and flung it into the dark embrasure of the long window that opened above his head into the street outside. It was filled with iron portales, like grill-work, that made the room look like a cage. “In five minutes more I would have done all that Don Francisco feared and would have cleared the score for the beautiful Mercedes. Saints! What eyes she has! And hair the color of ripe corn! Have I wandered from San Lucar de Borremeo to Vera Cruz only to find my fate in the hands of a young girl in Anahuac ?” He sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. ““Mercedes—a beautiful name surely! But Avilez would fit it better than Acasta.. By all the gods of heathen Rome, if I were not marching tomorrow with Coronado, I would make them show cause why they will marry this January and May. Why should she marry that old ape? Bah! How dark it grows. = please the whim of one man. Am I to have no light?” = “Give me your word,” insisted the con- He shouted for a servant but none quistador, “that you will not fight that came. They were having a fandango in a man and that this affair shall go no one of the smaller courts and heard = further.” nothing, so Andres pulled his chair be- ah. At - : “He is really not fit for the sword fore the open door and sat looking Fs? vi Se of a caballero,’ said Andres, glancing moodily out into the empty patio, listen- 5 scornfully at Fonseca, who was drunk- ing to the raucous singing of the house- | = enly straightening his points. “I give servants. ee you my word.” An hour passed. He got out a whet-. Bie. “Good! You have relieved my mind _ stone and fell to whetting his sword as pits of much worry. Go now to your quar- it lay across his knees. A man passed eae ters and stay there. I will see that a him, walking slowly across the shaded ae good supper is sent you. I can take no opening of the door. Again two men a chance tonight, Andres. The fiscalmight crossed the patio. reach you in his drunken folly and force “What an easy thing it would have : ? \ = COLMICDOOKS GOK —— Laid ~ a : — i or eg ee a = A 7 Se od ee i = - 2. = = am ee . — ee OS Sa 2 eee 7 a ae