Penny Dreadfuls, 1865 · page 135 of 204
Rose Mortimer; Or, The Ballet-Girl's Revenge — page 135: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Victorian Penny Dreadful Page Analysis This is an interior page (129) of the serial *Rose Mortimer; or, The Ballet-Girl's Revenge*, containing both an illustration and running prose dialogue. The engraving depicts a woman in flowing dress positioned against stone archways near water, labeled "[THE LOST ONE.]" Below, the text shows a dialogue between a captive narrator and a masked man who guards her confinement. The narrator requests permission to walk in the garden; the man's reaction to this word "Garden" suggests some hidden significance she fails to understand, leaving both characters puzzled by the miscommunication.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ROSE MORTIMER ; OR, THE BALLET-GIRL’S REVENGE. Ah \ 2 44 TS hee 4 5 Uy i 129 Li yp yl | et aadh bes ! Uy Y LM en , AG ps mem Me se \ TNH ; | tt , 4 YY Ye een ia PAI AS it LH = Wf [THE LOST ONE. ] “T could not refrain from shuddering at these words, 80 deliberately uttered, and my pain evidently gave him pleasure to witness. “¢ Before you go,’ said I, ‘ there is but one request I have to make.’ “< “Name it.’ is ‘T should like to breathe the fresh air.’ ‘Impossible.’ ‘But I promise that I will make no effort to escape— not the yery least. Only let me walk in the garden, or—’ ‘“ Here I broke off short, for the man started and his eyes flashed a thousand fires through the holes in the mask. ING: 21.0, ‘¢¢@arden!? he repeated. ‘You have seen that once too often.’ ‘© T was bewildered. : ‘There was no doubt something significant attached to his words, but I failed to comprehend them. ‘ JTe stared at me, and I believe was not a little puz- zled by the expression. His words had been appa- rently uttered with the conviction that I should com- prehend the meaning of them, but it was not at all difficult to perceive that I was quite lost. ““¢Do you mean to say that you do not catch my meaning ?’ he asked. 666 7. do,’ said I. ‘¢¢ You do not know the garden ?’ Ghook nn