Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

102 ALFRED DE ROSANN. found guilty, and condemned to the galleys for life. As for the papers I left behind me at the farm-house, I never mentioned their existence to the Gendarmes, determined that, if those documents dd contain infor- mation which might lead to an important discovery, no one should enjoy the benefit of wealth that 1 had lost, through any disclosure from my lips. It is how- ever more than probable that the farmer found them, saw that they were useless, and destroyed them.”’ Such was the horrible tale which Francois—for the old man was generally known by this name—had often told his companions; and so far as it could be ratified by the proceedings before the tribunal that condemned him, it was perfectly correct. With re- gard to the rest, no one could attest its veracity, nor prove its falsity. but let us hasten to inform our readers wherefore Francois is now in the strong- room of the prison, and why he is under sentence of death in a place at which he had been already doomed to pass the remainder of his miserable existence. About six months before the arrival of De Rosann, Belle-Rose, Champignon, and their comrades, a youth of fifteen was sent to the galleys for a period of five years. His character was the most depraved that can be conceived; he had participated in many daring robberies; and, after having been repeatedly pardoned and admonished by humane magistrates, he was at last found to be incorrigible, and the law was allowed to have its usual course. But the old Francois took pity upon the tender years of Kdouard—so the young prisoner was named—and behaved to him with even parental kindness. Occasionally the turnkeys, in consideration of the length of time that Francois had been at the dagne, slily ameliorated his usually coarse meal, and gave him fruits, cold meats, half a bottle of wine, or some little luxury of the kind. These addi- tions to the ordinary fare were always transferred to Edouard—and the old man experienced a secret pleasure in thus alleviating the miseries of a being that nevertheless was naught to him. If Edouard & GomichbooksnGcom