Fully a hundred soldiers were also landed and marched into the village.  They were armed with three-pronged spears, slicing spears, and chopping spears, with here and there a matchlock of so heroic mould that there were two soldiers to a matchlock, one to carry and set the tripod on which rested the muzzle, the other to carry and fire the gun.  As I was to learn, sometimes the gun went off, sometimes it did not, all depending upon the adjustment of the fire-punk and the condition of the powder in the flash-pan.

So it was that Kwan-Yung-jin travelled.  The headmen of the village were cringingly afraid of him, and for good reason, as we were not overlong in finding out.  I stepped forward as interpreter, for already I had the hang of several score of Korean words.  He scowled and waved me aside.  But what did I reek?  I was as tall as he, outweighed him by a full two stone, and my skin was white, my hair golden.  He turned his back and addressed the head man of the village while his six silken satellites made a cordon between us.  While he talked more soldiers from the ship carried up several shoulder-loads of inch-planking.  These planks were about six feet long and two feet wide, and curiously split in half lengthwise.  Nearer one end than the other was a round hole larger than a man’s neck.

Kwan Yung-jin gave a command.  Several of the soldiers approached Tromp, who was sitting on the ground nursing a felon.  Now Tromp was a rather stupid, slow-thinking, slow-moving cuny, and before he knew what was doing one of the planks, with a scissors-like opening and closing, was about his neck and clamped.  Discovering his predicament, he set up a bull-roaring and dancing, till all had to back away to give him clear space for the flying ends of his plank.

Then the trouble began, for it was plainly Kwan Yung-jin’s intention to plank all of us.  Oh, we fought, bare-fisted, with a hundred soldiers and as many villagers, while Kwan Yung-jin stood apart in his silks and lordly disdain.  Here was where I earned my name Yi Yong-ik, the Mighty.  Long after our company was subdued and planked I fought on.  My fists were of the hardness of topping-mauls, and I had the muscles and will to drive them.

To my joy, I quickly learned that the Koreans did not understand a fist-blow and were without the slightest notion of guarding.  They went down like tenpins, fell over each other in heaps.  But Kwan Yung-jin was my man, and all that saved him when I made my rush was the intervention of his satellites.  They were flabby creatures.  I made a mess of them and a muss and muck of their silks ere the multitude could return upon me.  There were so many of them.  They clogged my blows by the sneer numbers of them, those behind shoving the front ones upon me.  And how I dropped them!  Toward the end they were squirming three-deep under my feet.  But by the time the crews of the three junks and most of the village were on top of me I was fairly smothered.  The planking was easy.