D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

48 The Petrel. those cabalistic words which do, or do not, bring’ fish to the hook. Still, the messenger did not come. He did not shrink therefore from letting: himself be transferred, under Pedro’s wing, into a larger vessel, making longer trips, and soon increased his knowledge of the extent of the watery territory overruled by the Brothers of the Coast. A little drop or two of his blood and that of Pedro’s, the latter portion transfused in his veins, as the like was done toward the ancient master of the Petrel, made them “blood” brothers, while a ceremony, garnished with a blood-curdling oath, converted the landsman into a full- fledged Brother of the Coast. Thenceforth, M. d’Artagnan, whatever the number of men he commanded on land, might congratulate himself that he had a little navy at his back, composed of the lawless and landless, it is true, but not to be condemned. There was a good amvuunt of Portuguese, or those who had sailed from Portuguese ports, in the Brother- hood of the Coast. “T do not say,’ mused the plotter, “that Cardinal Richelieu will live to see Portugal free—but I think he will have invitation to the coronation of a king other than the present bearer of its sceptre.” He began to believe that the messenger from France was not hurried—that he would not anticipate the day of the limit of his arrival. So he continued his trips, without closely counting the duration. It was while he was thus absent from “his” inn that, one afternoon, a man rode into Salinas on a mule, He was young and dark; he was bowed by study rather than years, or as one of a race bred under the yoke. He-was well-advised if he had been directed to take baths there, for he was unkempt and unwashed, almost like a hermit who had taken the vow not to care for him- self. His clothes were in keeping; old, worn, mended very badly and with patches not of the original stuff. His mule and D’Artagnan’s horse, which was grazing on wild asparagus on the cliff together, would not fetch the price of one pony in a fair market. Gomichooks.co