Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 232: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 225 lynsso haughty, to endow medical colleges; named Pember- ton as sole executor and manager. Having thus deliberately cut myself adrift from my na- tive land, I wandered about, sometimes the guest of an Avab shiek, sometimes a dweller in the palace of the grand vizier. ‘¢ My life was imperiled a hundred times, by the sand- storm of the desert; by hunger, thirst, sun-stroke, or the sword of the fierce native. ‘¢ Sometimes my thoughts lingered sadly about my for- saken land—my desolate Wold; if I had had a little sister waiting for my return, what strange treasures would I have gathered from the land of tnirst and sunshine. ‘ At length I went to Astrabad, hearing that the plague was raging through it, and _asI had some knowledge of the treatment of the disease, I hoped to benefit some one of the devoted people who were dying by hundreds. For the next two months I was occupied happily in alleviating the suf- ferings of my fellow-creatures, and I succeeded in checking the progress of the plague, six weeks earlier than had hap- pened in twenty years. «The plague was quelled at Astrabad, but it broke out with fury at Saree, to which I immediately repaired. «J had not been at Saree more than a fortnight, when a caravan came into the city from Astrabad with a Mahom- medan boy who carried an English letter for me. ‘«< Here it is, covered with grease and postmarks, with not a little Zend scrawling—to send it to Saree by a sure hand. And these are the contents: ‘(My Dear Vicror:—Return immediately. I have reason to believe that a member of your family has been separated from you by fraud— you know who I mean. Iam about to return to America to find the truth of the suspicion. Shape your course directly to New York. You will find a letter waiting for you in box —, P.O. No more expla- nations in this, as it may not reach you. God speed my boy. ‘* Yours, ALPHONSE PEMBERTON. _ «This letter startled me out of my apathy. It broke, — like the peal which rends the thunder-cloud, my false resig- nation, and brought back to me the wild sweetness of the _ life which was forever gone. > ahead -. . , ¥' s ‘That same night I left Saree with a company of silk merchants, and journeyed to the Caspian Sea. I have not rested night or day for the last four weeks; even on board comicbooks-co im