The Blockade Runner — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

Ree ne THE BLOCKADE RUNNER. The skipper did not immediately reply, for a terrible gust just then swept the deck, sending a quantity of cold spray into his face, and a chill along his bones. “It’s a regular January blow,” he shouted at length, his cheeks puffing out like a pair of bellows. “ Seen any gun boats ?” “ Nary one,” replied the captain. “ They’re pretty well scattered to-night, I reckon, and we are not likely to be seen at all, unless we run afoul of one of them ourselves.” He turned red in the face from the exertion of talking. “Come below, Mr. Bentham. Tm chilled to the bone and must have a bracer. We can’t talk here.” The pair at once dived down the companion way. Captain Powell wiped the tiny icicles from his beard and eyebrows, and the moisture from his mahog- any-hued cheeks. | He then mixed two glasses of stiff grog, and pushing one toward his companion, gulped down the contents of the other with evident relish. “Yes,” said the skipper complacently, “we will make port safely this time. It is just the kind of night for it—black as ink and blowing great guns. You feel how the old gal rises to the sea—and she’s as dry as a bone. JI had her thoroughly overhauled and freshly caulked at Cherbourg, for I knew what I might expect off this coast at this time of the year. Some of those ~ leaky tubs that try to run the blockade would founder in this gale.” “ T should say the Foxhound isa stanch craft,” re plied young Bentham. ‘I have been impressed with her seagoing qualities since I took passage on board. GComichbooksico