Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

106 ALFRED DE ROSANN. sorrows of him whose life was speedily to pass away beneath it. At first the sharp and heavy iron had hung aloft as an obscure and dark thing ; but when its terrors were revealed and rendered palpable by that abrupt emanation of light, an universal groan issued from the breasts of those who beheld it. De _ Rosann turned away from the barred window in un- utterable horror ; Belle-Rose muttered an anathema of some emphasis against the ungrateful Edouard ; and Champignon made so frightful a face, that, had any attention been paid to it, an observer would have fancied he was under the influence of a sudden strangulation. But luckily no one took notice of his contortions ; and he sate down to ponder for the first time in his life on something unconnected with cookery. | Presently the roll of drums, and the march of soldiers, called De Rosann and his companions once more to the windows. A strong military force, with loaded muskets, and fixed bayonets, guarded every avenue of the extensive prison, and surrounded the square, in the midst of which the guzllotine was erected. -But it was easy to discern by their counte- nances, that there was not a warrior amongst the martial throng, whose heart was not softened at the melancholy tragedy about to be enacted. Heroes that have bled at Wagram, Austerlitz, Jena, and Arcole, and that have trampled upon conquered thousands beneath the banners of Napoleon, can still drop a tear at the sight of a fellow-creature’s sufferings ! No sooner had the soldiers taken up their station as described, than the convicts were chained in couples as a precautionary measure against the inclination to create a tumult, which invariably possesses a lawless multitude on such occasions, and were then conducted to the large square to be spectators of Francois’ ex- ecution ; while Edouard, whose excuses could not totally overcome the sagacity of the prison-doctor, was himself doomed to witness a sight of which he was the cause. As he had just left the hospital he Gomichbooks.Gcom