Despard, the Spy: Or, The Fall of Montreal — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

WHO ARE xouU? 23 think I have thrown them off the scent. There are few men in Montreal who know of the many places where I can hide my bead from pursuit, Has any one been here ?” “ Speak to the purpose first,” replied the deformed man, in his barsh, guttural voice. “I must know if you are in any danger. If so, away; find another hiding-place. Andrew Despard. can have no rest a8 long as his mission remains un- accomplished. How say you? Are you in dread ?”’ “Tt is no one who has force enough to break in. They may come to the «oor. If they do, open the wicket and threaten them with the soldiers at the barriers.” A loud knock interrapted him as he was going on with the speech, and « lond voice demanded admittance. Despard stepped into a little curtained recess apart from the large room, and peeped out from the curtains. Thedeformed man pushed a chair up to the door, and mounting on it with an agility which no one would have supposed him capabie of, opened a little wicket, not four inches square, and listened. “Open here! Open in the name of the Governor !” cried a voice, which Despard had no difficulty in recognizing as that of Dujardin. “Who are you ?” screamed Conrad, “that dare come here in the night to rouse a poor deformed man from the only rest he knows? Conrad Dumont has enough sorrow without any more being added.” “We have pursued a man to this place for attempting the life of Major Dujardin,” cried another voice. ‘“ His name is - Despard. He has been seen to enter here before, and he is here now.” “You lie, you crop-eared villain. Now may the curse of the eye that never sleeps, of the hand which is palsied, and the ear that can not hear, fall on you, and blight you, body and bones! ‘May yon cry for rest, even in the grave, and never attain it! Muy your food be poison and your drink the oil of upas! ‘If you have children, the ban of deformity fall on them, as it has fallenonme! Away, youscum! I charge you, haunt not about my doors! I am Conrad the sorcerer, whom ye all fear.” | “For the sake of all the-sdints, Major Dujardin,” said the last speaker, “come away from this. Thut deformed lump coMmicbooOoks GO