Lady Evelyn — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

“< « 4 4 156 bik i “The Red Ones” mam ’selle—from the hangman first, and from the devil’ S own limb after, his cousin Gerald. It’s a long story, mam ’selle, but I want you to tell the mother the whole thing, so I know youll listen.” ‘TIL listen with pleasure, Mike. Go on.” “Well, little queen,” the sick man said, “it’s twenty years ago, as I told you, that I returned home to Clontarf, after a long voyage, mate of the ‘Dancing Dervish.’ The first news I heard upon landing was about the worst news I could hear—that my foster-brother, Lord Roderick Desmond, only son of the Earl of Clontarf, was in prison, condemned to death for the murder of a little cottage girl, Kathleen O'Neal. He was innocent, of course. T knew it as well then as I do now, and I swore a nue UY oaih I would free him, or die with him. “Well, mam ‘selle, I kept that oath. I freed him from prison. I took him toa lonely place on the seashore and left him there, while I went for a boat to'take him to the “Dancing Dervish.’ On my way I met his cousin Gerald Desmond-—a lawyer, and the blackest devil alive! “But I thought him his friend, and so did Lord Rod- erick himself, and I told him what had happened, and begged him to go to his cousin, while I brought the boat. “He went—the cowardly cut-throat !—and what passed between them I never knew. Only as I rounded the point -- and came in sight of the cliff where I had left Lord Rory, I saw two men struggling in a death-grip. I heard the report of a pistol. Then one tumbled backward into the sea, and the other fled like a madman from the spot. “I rowed with all my might, mam’selle, and I reached the piace as the body arose. He was not dead; he was not even senseless. He was badly wounded; but the bul- let, aimed at his heart, had missed its mark. I drew him into the boat. I had the strength of a giant in that hour, mam’selle, and I put for the ‘Dancing Dervish.’ Half an hour after, and we were on our way to Mel- bourne, with Lord Roderick lying like a dead man in the cabin below. “I told no one en board who he was. It would have been fatal. They would have given him up at once. The captain was a friend of mine, and an easy, good-natured old cove, and kept him, and doctored him, and took care of him, and when we reached Melbourne he was nearly comicbooks.co toe | ;