Commodore Junk — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

A DARING TRICK. 57 f hair to where the flames leaped, and seized it, scorching the locks, which writhed, and curled, and flared, and crackled as if alive, while, as if to aid the idea that she was destroy- ing something living, a peculiarly pungent odour arose, as of burning flesh, and filled the room. An hour later, just as the red moon rose slowly above the surface of the sea, a sturdy-looking young man, with a stout stick in one hand—the very stick which had helped to belabour Captain Armstrong—and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief beneath his arm, stepped out of the cottage, changed the key from inside to outside, closed the old door, locked it, dragged out the key, and with a sudden jerk sent it flying far out into deep water beyond the rocks, where it fell with a dull plash/ followed by a peculiar hissing sound, as the waves at high water rushed back over the fine shingle at the thrower’s feet. There was a sharp look round then; but no one was in sight ; nothing to be heard but the hissing waters, and the splashing, gasping, and smacking sound, as the tide swayed in and out among the masses of stone. Then the figure turned once more to the cottage, gazed at it fixedly for a few moments, took a step or two away; but sprang back directly with an exceeding bitter cry, and kissed the rough, unpainted wood- work again and again with rapid action, and then dashed off to the foot of the cliff, and climbed rapidly to the sheep-track— the faintly-seen path that led towards Slapton Lea and the old hall, where the captain still stayed with his young wife, and then joined the west road which led to Plymouth town. The risky part of the track was passed, and the open and down-like pastures beyond the cliffs were reached; and here, with the moon beginning to throw the shadow of the traveller far forward and in weird-looking length, the original of that shadow strode on manfully for another quarter of a mile, when CONnnicloOolk<s =>