Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

154 Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. sailors, only creeping down to the harbor after nightfall in the hopes of slipping unseen on board one of the swift craft that risked the dangers of the channel in the lust for gain, and so obtaining a surreptitious passage to the English coast. ; Many and disheartening were my failures, as the months rolled by. Once I got as far as mid-channel undetected, when our ship was so hotly pursued by a revenue cutter that her crew were glad to get back uncaptured to the port she sailed from. Again, some months later, I was lying snugly ensconced among the lumber of a ship about to put out. All was in readiness, the ropes were manned, the anchor was on the point of being weighed, when a too familiar voice sent my heart into my mouth by starting @ song : ‘© A moonless sky, and a cloudy night, A bright look-out for the signal-light. And hey ! for the king’s embargo.” I slipped over the bows into the water, quaking at the narrow escape I had had of standing once more face to face with John o’ comichbooks.com