D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

The Storm. 73 “Yes; impossible to find Las Salinas without a clew. It is not on the map! I got it at your country place.” “Is all well at Floriador ?” “Perhaps you should say, ‘Are all well?’ Your brother has taken away nearly all the men to form a regiment for the king.” “Oh, that Jorge——” ‘Who is the dragon ito you?” “He is the dragon, also, devouring our best blood and muscle! So he has gone down to our country place? Was my letter intact?” “A gentleman—fie !” “Gentlemen do odd things in these days when ladies have to play the amazon!” The duchess smiled dubiously. “I warrant nothing. Seals are so neatly sliced off and imitated. Dear lady of Floriador, who is safe?” “Tam not sorry you are out of it. My brother is one of those faithful who would arrest a queen-regnant if the king ordered so.” “Tihen, if the duke i “Faith! he would not shrink from laying hands on a duke’s sword! So, I ask to know if the duke i “Returning to our Castle of Braganza, with the key to your new domicile, the duke showed me a formal in- vitation, very prettily worded, but a command all the same " “To go to the Escurial? Woe! they will broil him on that gridiron palace!’ “Not at all! Broils and brawls are forgotten! War between Spain and other powers over, the court gives itself up to festas—but for roasting a heretic now and anon there is positively nothing doing that would cause that angel-overseer, who looks at us through a peephole in the skies, to blush and avert the face. The duke went by that desire to attend a ceremony, the launching of a new vessel, the initial one of a fleet. They are going to transform the navy. ‘No more bluff-bowed tubs, but snaky, fleet, sinuous craft which will travel like that serpent who shot out of the surge to devour Andromeda. It is a new fleet called ‘The Holy Hope’ by his majesty himself.” CORNICE IOoOKS.e@)