Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

a 94 | ALFRED DE ROSANN. on the arrival of the chain was not useless, as it might have at first appeared to the reader, whose wonder was very naturally excited at the apparent folly of causing so much trouble, instead of dealing out a change of habiliments at once ; whereas the clothes were necessarily kept back for a night, in order to be distinguished by the nomenclatures of those who were destined to wear them. JBelle-Rose and De Rosann retained their passports untouched, as Plom- bier had assured them would be the case ; and their delight at this circumstance was-only equalled by their curiosity to become acquainted with the nature, the source, and the extent of a power which displayed itself in so remarkable a manner, and_yet remained concealed from every eye. It was evident that the agents knew no more of the motives of their employ- ment, than the King’s messenger is aware of the contents of the dispatches which he bears from his sovereign’s court to a foreign monarch. ~ ‘Those agents worked for a purpose into whose mysteries they could not penetrate; they laboured to accomplish ends carefully concealed from their view. ‘Thus was it impossible to betray the site of the mighty fountain whence issued a thousand streams; thus were the invisible promoters of vast designs enabled to enlist the infamous as well as the virtuous in their service, and secure the eventual success of their enterprises by the cunning of those whose experience was not ob- tained in the paths of honour, but in the schools of vice. _ But if De Rosann were disgusted with the licentious and loose anecdotes of his companions on their march from Paris to Brest, how much more had he reason to shudder at the behaviour, the principles, and the lan- guage of those whom he found at the bagne. One related, with the utmost coolness a tale of horror and assassination, in which he himself had been engaged, and for which he was condemned; another swore that the first use he should make of his freedom, would be to cut the throat of the person who delivered him Gomicdooksteom