Adventure Magazine Cover — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

They had their time, and we may say: they were! Don Lewis of Madrid is now the sole remaining master of the world. BEN JONSON (The New Inn). “}IT WAS close upon noon, hour of the “‘ordinary”’ at the Bolt- in-Tun, that noted tavern over . against Ludgate, by the Fleet. Hither a goodly company of your cava- liero gentry, whether captains of fortune or town gulls, were wont daily to foregather, intent as much upon the gleaning of foreign news as upon the savory promise of a good dinner. For the common room of the Bolt-in-Tun was rarely devoid of some new great man fresh from oversea experience and full of tales as a hen is of clucks. Here might you at all times reckon upon the diversion of tall stories of Bohemia or Eldorado; of Castile’s splendor or cruelty of border onsets and leaguers; of outfalls and camisadoes in Por- tugal or Muscovy; of boardings, wrecks, and discoveries about the Spanish Main— admirable and much-admired adventures which nevertheless seemed to have left their hero none the wealthier, save in fine- chased outlandish oaths. But this day, the last of September in the year 1602, forty-fourth of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the ruffling community at the “Tun” —old and young, all lovers of a blade—was Authors of The Pride . Tennica’ etc. ot 2 Hs "5%: oe | pee too deeply engrossed in the topic of the Lon- don hour o have much interest to spare for travelers’ tales. Yet the latest oracle of them all, a man, tall, gray-bearded, of freebooting manner and conscious truculence of mien, was not only well prepared (as his attitude testified) to fill his post with due relish, but, unlike many of his kind, bore evidence of having really countered many hard knocks of fate. One hollow orbit, a gash that had shorn his weather-beaten countenance of the best part of an ear, not to speak of a left hand reduced to one finger and the thumb—each memento of adventure might in its turn have served for fitting introduc- tion to some tall story. For the moment he sat in moody silence, his single eye roaming fierce and wary from one to the other of the eager faces about him—watching for the chance, it seemed, of springing upon the talk and holding it as his own. From time to time he lifted the ale pot to his lips with that mutilated hand that yet showed menace in its pinch. At length a scanty stock of patience seemed, on a sudden, to fail him; for he raised a voice that drew every eye suddenly full upon him. “Vincent, again!”’ quoth he. “By the curse of Mahound, and who may this Vin- cent be that ye all should be gathering, in 579 COMICLOOCKKS. EGO