D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER VIII. THE THIRD TENANT. “Well,” grumbled the money-lender, “I will not answer for the consequences.” “Take your coin.” She put a silk purse on the table, wherein the gold . pieces glittered through the fine meshes like fish in a net. For the first time in his life Elizor put money away with- out counting it. The loftiness of this lady daunted him; he would as soon as have thrown a pebble at her as hinted by an act that he doubted her honesty. Still, he had had princesses come to pawn their jewels with him. “And I do not require answers, except to my ques- tions.” He waited for those questions, but none came; she was examining the room. “Is there anything I can do for you, before I leave you the inn, yours from ceiling to sill?” inquired he. He began to shiver at the doubt that he should find any cover for his head, poor proscript that he was, within easy march that night, and yet the ten pieces so easily gotten would drive away sleep. “Ts there a window—a cranny open to the sea?” Elizor had noticed a crack in the rock. He pointed to it. A current of air set in through it which shook the blackened cobwebs over their heads. “There is one—it has given me a crick in the neck.” “Anticipating ’ she finished, with a playful ges- ture, pantomiming a suspension like Jove’s candles, which was neither in the sea, in the air, nor on the land. In a niche, about head high, stood a statuette, in Della Robbia ware, of the particular divinity of the seas, “Our Lady of the Star of the Sea.”’ Between the negress, who was a heathen, and D’Artagnan, who was not often in- doors, the lamp had been suffered to go out; a three-ply screen of that Sarreal alabaster scraped thin and used: for glass was set before it to enable the light to burn steadily. CORNICE OOS (C(O) AL