Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

136 ALFRED DE ROSANN. self near the table, at a respectful distance from his father’s guests, whom he eyed from time to time with embarrassment, not knowing whether he might con- verse freely, or not, in their presence. ae ‘Speak out like a man,” cried Claude, who re- _ marked his son’s timidity: “ these gentlemen are tra- vellers—”’ “From China, too,’ interrupted Jeannette, with a good-humoured smile upon her countenance. _“ And they have condescended to accept our poor hospitality,’’ continued Claude, not heeding the girl’s jocularity: “so speak boldly, and tell us all you have seen or heard.’’ _ There have been dreadful riots in the prisons of the galley-slaves,’? began Jacques, who was just re- turned from Brest, whither his grandmother had sent him on some errand: “and three convicts have es- caped !”’ ‘ Three convicts!’’? exclaimed Belle-Rose coolly, while De Rosann played with his spoon, and held down his head, for he felt the colour mounting to his cheeks. : “ Yes—three convicts have escaped,’? resumed the boy: “anather has been executed, and a fifth mur- dered.”’ : An exclamation of mingled horror and curiosity on the part of Jeannette, Claude, and the old woman, in- terrupted this recital; but Belle-Rose, pretending to feel a considerable degree of interest in the tale; begged the boy to proceed. Jacques accordingly re- lated, with a thousand exaggerations, those particulars, relative to the decapitation of Frangois, the massacre of Edouard, and the commotion amongst the forcats, of which the reader is already aware; adding, that during the riot, three convicts had succeeded in break- _ing off their chains, and in effecting their escape, but that the Gendarmes were on the alert, and that the re- capture of the deserters was hourly expected. “And how did the revolt terminate?” inquired Claude. | COMICLOOK<S5(€O)