Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. 107 would in all probability result in my instant — death at the hands of the ruthless man of the woods, who, as I rightly conjectured, was the unwelcome arrival, admitted of no dis- pute, yet there was no apparent means of escape. To attempt to pass anyone in that cramped corridor, even supposing he bore no light, which was unlikely, would be madness ; but there was no other means of. egress from the room. I was trapped, and al] that I could do was to crouch down among the barrels in the darkest corner and trust to his fancied security to prevent his making any examina- tion. Scarcely had I accomplished this when he entered the room, accompanied by another man wrapped in a large cloak. He went straight to the grating, and having pressed a portion of it, with the sharp click I was now familiar with, the whole thing glided down into the room below, leaving a window-like aperture, and forming as I guessed a fairly practicable means of clambering to the floor beneath. Even as he threw a leg across the sill I saw plainly, by the light of his lantern, my comichbooks.com