Adventure Magazine Cover — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

580 ‘thought, like so many rats to-day round his ‘carcass? Let us be talking of living men, my 'springalls, and let the dead go rot; for, by your laments, I take it that he’s dead in his bed even as any old woman—this same gal- lant Vincentio Saviolo!”’ | For an instant there was that pause around the table which marks some mon- strous pronouncement; then a_ sudden clamor among the huffing crowd, a scraping of boots and spurs as sundry started to their feet, a mouthing of oaths, a jingling of cans as others turned upon their bench to con- front the blasphemer. It required all mine host’s persuasiveness to quell the rising threat—aided, no doubt, by the steadiness of the adventurer’s single orb that looked with such mastery out of the tanned visage. “I pray you, masters, no tumult here, and on this day! And pray you, good Cap- tain Strongi’th’arm, you should know that the name of Vincent Saviolo, the great mas- ter of fence, who died but yestereve, is one we speak here with respect. Where shall he be mourned more than at the Bolt-in-Tun, which has sounded to his tread daily these twenty years? But you are from foreign parts, Captain, and have not known him.” ‘Twas the tallest man of his hands, at all manner of weapons, but above all at rapier play,” asserted a gallant from the end of the table, and made in dumb show, with his two forefingers extended, the sketch of a pass with sword and dagger. “The subtlest arbiter in all matters of honorable difficulty,” cried another, older and grave. The encomium was capped by a youth with a court air about him. ‘““A most noted favorite, look you, of her Majesty. Her Grace liked above all things to be heard tripping Italian with the gallant signor. Ah, Her Grace knows a right proper man!” added he and smiled as one who has his reason for saying so. “‘Aye, aye,’ commented mine host ge- nially, glad to see the vexed question like to be settled by wag of tongue only, “and Master Vincent was likewise a friend of my good Lord of Pembroke.” “And I'll tell you more,” interposed a raffish blade from the “Friars,” much be- dizened if somewhat out at elbows; ‘‘one who first put a rapier in Master Will Shake- speare’s hand—one who was himself the butcher of a silk button (Oh, rare!) as Mer- cutio hath it in the play!” Captain Strongi’th’arm’s little fierce eye, Adventure which had mellowed under something like amusement, suddenly became fixed upon the doorway. “Here come two as goodly youths,” he asserted into space, ‘‘as I have seen since I landed. But, body o’ me! whence do our honest English lads get knowledge of these foreign antics? In my time, an elbow in the stomach was the way to settle precedence if the portal was scant for two.” “Aha now!” exclaimed the gallant who was of the court, “‘these same antics, as you call them, are as a point of honor with all scholars of our lamented Master Saviolo, and all the more punctiliously observed by yonder pair that, from the friends they were yesterday, they have become rivals to-day.” “Say you so?”’ called out eagerly a young gull from the other side of the table. “How so, fair sir?”’ “Why, ’tis the sole talk in Paul’s Walk this morning. Have you never heard? Robert Beckett and Dick Wyatt are, by Signor Vincentio’s dying wish, expressed to my Lord of Pembroke himself, to contend for the reversion of the Master’s honors in the ‘Friars,’ aye and of the mastership itself at the Academy!”’ All glances were turned toward the door, to gaze upon the two who had assumed so sudden an importance in the ruffling world. The question of courteous precedence had been settled and the shorter of the new- comers advanced into the room with a slow step and an air of gravity that seemed to sit uneasily upon his comely sanguine counte- nance. A goodly youth, broad-shouldered, sinewy, his bright brown eyes seemed made to match a flashing smile. ‘“‘Master Robert Beckett, a student at the Temple—good Kentish stock, sir,’ mur- mured mine host into Strongi’th’arm’s split ear. ‘‘And behind him, sir, his friend, Master Wyatt.” ‘A tall galliard,’’ commented the adven- turer, “though less of a gentleman than your Templar.” ‘“‘ Aye, good sir,’’ assented the other, still under his voice; ‘your perspicacity has hit in the gold. "Iwas a mere city ’prentice—till some good dame marked him for her heir, and dying left him rich.” ‘Master Vincent’s two best scholars, Sir Traveler,’ here interposed a typical Paul’s man, with long tooth and ragged lip, fixing on the veteran an aggressive stare and speaking loud as one in hopes of stirring up GCOMIGDOOKSEEO