The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. % fence yet, Miers Mabel: and I’ll warrant he’ll be a good man an’ he once escape from me, anyhow, at all.” ‘* Hush; he is here,” said Mabel. ‘‘Good! I'll keep an eye upon him,” said Rafferty, drawing himself back into his hiding-place. He had scarcely assumed that position when Mabel saw the man approaching toward her; she rose up, and in another mo- ment the man made a rush and stood up before her. There was a strange emotion playing around the heart of Mabel when she saw that mysterious man standing erect before her. Her power of speech was gone, and though she was anxious to ascertain the secret of her birth, yet she found the courage that buoyed her up now fled, and a feeling of terror and even despair sat at her heart. Mabel trembled despite the assurance she had of Rafferty’s protection, as the stranger gazed upon her, and she recognized in him the same man who had before alarmed her so much in the wilderness when the faithful dog had probably been the nieans of saving her from his violence. But the alarm she now felt was only of a momentary character. She had made up her mind that she would give the man this meeting. It was upon a subject of by far too anxious a character for her to shrink from. She only wished that in whatever revelation he made to her, he would be quick, in order that she might the sooner free herself from the terror of his presence. ‘« You are punctual,” he said, in a low voice. ‘‘T want no compliments,” she said. <‘‘I want no words whatever with you, but upon the subject mentioned in your note to me, for I presume it came from you. You invite me to this spot under promise of making to me a certain statement. — and let me go. I begin to fear I was wrong in coming ere. _ **Tf you had not come, you would have had cause to regret it the longest day you live. Do you fancy, now, that I have taken some trouble, and more danger, to meet you here and tell you some.hing, unless I expected something in return for the information ?” “I did not thiuk of this,” said Mabel, despairingly, ‘for I would not have come. I have no reward to give you.” ‘* Do you mean to say that you are kept so close by the cap- tain, that you have no money at all? Come, come, girl, don’t tell me. You can lay your hands on some pounds, I dare say, Go back to the house, and get me what muney youcan. When you return, I undertake to receive it, let its amount be what it may, as a payment for the secret I—and I alone—can disclose to Oo b) ‘* No,” said Mabel, ‘‘no; that is a course which I cannot adopt. It is sufficient for me that you want money, and that I have none to give you. I repent areaey leaving my home to meet one who has nothing to tell me. If you will not commence the narrative you promised, I will return again, and forget the delusive promise which lured me here.” The man now seemed to be quite convinced that as yet there comicbooks. com