The Girl from Hong-Kong: A Story of Adventure Under Five Suns — page 194: what you’re looking at

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

188 THE GIRL FROM HONG-KONG. “ The Michailoff palace, a massive pile of gloomy granite, Fears its walls close .by.: . 7 | Terry has been smart. enough to gather all the infor- mation possible, and no sooner has he alighted than he discovers the place they seek. A modest bower is this den of the man who in military “% BF ) jcircles is known as the prince of swordsmen, and yet for years it -has been one of the sights shown to pilgrims in St.‘ Petersburg. te Smolensko is a Pole by birth. His ancestors fought to the last gasp at the time the little nation, bleeding. at every vein, defied the Great Bear. His has been the hand whose cunning the czar’s officers have envied—his the eagle eye that: seemed to divine an intended. stroke when formed -in the brain of an antagonist. Never has Smolenska met his.equal—to the most adroit swordsmen has he given points and then made- them the laughing stock of the spectators. Given. a- sword he is a wizard, a demon. - To the czar he has been a man of extraordinary value; but his star is waning, as all stars-do: in Russia, for the shadow of suspicion has enshrouded him, his Polish birth giving cause for watch- fulness on the part of those Argus-eyed emissaries. who live only in the hope of rendering their*royal master. 2 service that will merit quick and glorious fruits. a ad comicbooks.com