D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

110 The Lodestone of Friendship. tenant, these natural words breaking the uncanny spell. “In with the poor devil, though I expect he is a galley slave who thas adopted the old device of a beer cask to make his escape from the chains!” ‘Slave ?”’ echoed the personage; “a slave, with a sword girdled on!” “Why, no—not a slave! A slave would not be armed, and, besides, this is a good Christian—the blade has a cross-hilt !” Two of the men, climbing out on the spar, and two, leaning over the boat’s gunwale, had tried to lift the sin- cular life-preserver, but, more sensibly, two more in the boat had grasped the man by the armpits and lugged him clean out and into the French boat. Their keen eyes perceived the bottle in its lashings, anid they dosed ‘him, after prying open his set teeth, with a generous portion of the fiery contents. They bathed his temples and moistened his lips. Froth appeared on the latter; breathing, which had been inter- mittent, became regular. ‘The eyes were unsealed, as if they ‘had ‘been incrusted. The passenger, who had watched all this resuscitation with quietude, conviniced that the work was in com- petent and experienced hands, began to assume a glad wonder, deeper than the mere restoration of a fellow- Christian might justify. He drew a long breath, held in suspense, with final relief, and lifted his sonorous voice into a kind of roar, like a lion perceiving its mate scrarr- bling out of a trap. “By St. Hubert’s horn, it is D’Art ‘i Prudence checked him. As if this recognition were all the almost-conquering death had lacked to relax his chilly grip, the musketeer captain moved in every muscle; as if electrified, he sat up among the administering arms, and glared straight at the speaker, ignoring all the others. His voice pealed, almost as lusty: “The saints are good to us! Yes, it is I, Porthos, who live! to see the best treasure of God, a true friend!” And, rising both, the younger helped by the strength of the other, the two embraced, like heroes in Homer, Eomicbooks. co