t his
office was appointive, and that he was a tithe-squeezer or tax-farmer.

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,