D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 277: what you’re looking at

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

260 A Corporeal Shade. “France! France! Brothers of the Coast! Sustain me! The Musketeers!’ words of no avail. At this instant a bystander, whose hair and beard bristled and whose face turned pale, gasped, as he knocked the dagger out of his companion’s grasp: “The Holy Brotherhood! It is the token of the In- quisition !” One look at the dagger, similar to that which Fra Benito had drawn upon Don Juan de Braganza, sufficed the mob. As one man, they took to their heels, throwing down what might impede their flight. In a twinkling the street was bare. Relieved of the pressure, the Knight of the Vallon staggered back against the wall. The steward raised the insensible monk. Another took up the dagger, fallen from the frightened rioter’s palsied hand. “This is a superior of the Inquisition,’ said the stew- ard, awed. The Frenchman was amused at the retreat. “Hum! a great fight, if it were a poor monk,” criti- cized he. “A poor one if it were a superior officer of that institution. But your master awaits us. Strike on the door and tell the sisters that the riffraff have fled. Get the poor fellow in to their care, if he is not sped. Let them look to those reckless wretches, too, if they will.” The street was strewn with the disabled. The inhabitants of the convent must have had their peephole. The flight had been perceived, for the door opened quickly. Several old men, gardeners and porters, issued and took in the sorely-buffeted janitor, if janitor he was. He had revived a little; he looked with deep and glazed eyes on Porthos, whom he had seen in his finery at the onset, and seemed to wave his hand in gratitude. But the soldier was paying him no heed—the whole in- cident was out of his consideration by this. “A well-tousled man,” muttered the steward, seeing the profound care with which the men treated the cause of the contention. “It is no business of mine, but since when \have the Carmelites had a leading spirit of the In- quisition to keep the gate? Those villains guessed rightly enough—there is a treasure in that convent.” Eomicbooks.co a oa