D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

34 The Power of a Quill. gunner or a topman on a fighting ship, particularly as it might not let me off a day to keep my tryst with the unknown!” “Bah!” muttered Pedro, evidently arguing with him- self. “A Gascon and a gentleman! Less than that will recommend you; besides, I may ‘have lost credit with the money lenders without doing so with the Brothers of the Coast. Become one of us, and we will laugh at the press gang!” “Brother,” returned the cavalier, frankly but se- riously, “I laugh but rustily when I laugh alone. The more, the merrier my laugh! I will go fishing with you bs Pedro put on his hat, drew the hood over it, and said gleefully: “A good sleep! I shall come for you!” As Gannarta felt his legs cooling without his boots, he hastily waved adieu, and hurried within the cave to sit close to the fire. The negress had waddled about to tidy up the den, and then sat down to her own meal of the boiled fish; after which, not forgetting the wine, she went and sat down in a corner, out of the light, and, clearing a German spin- ning wheel, she proceeded to reel off a tuft of flax, sing- ing to the whirr an African song not more reassuring, to judge by the intonation and her gnashing of teeth, than the sea-rover ballad of Pedro. But, though the gloom deepened by the untended lamp going out and the fire burning low, the host was calm. “Death of my life!” muttered he. “I am consoled for my long and little fruitful exploration of old Lusitania, and the disappointment of no tidings from Paris, by this happy episode. A prospect of fresh fish for breakfast, which King Louis has not in his palace, and of being made a Brother of the Coast! In case that imperialist invasion is no longer to be dreaded, since they assassinate the generals of it, whom they cannot defeat, and we con- tend no longer with Spain upon the Pyrenees, who knows but our fleet, reconstructed by Cardinal Richelieu, may look for a diversion on the deep? Not always vic- torious, it may greet the reinforcement commanded by the Gomicbooks. co