Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

216 Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. doso. The men around seemed fixed as if by enchantment, and though several had in- stinctively raised their weapons they hesitated to fire, for fear of injuring the woman by his side. Suddenly the spell was broken, as Meg, with a shriek, leaped to my neck, and strove to drag me from my seat. At the same mo- ment John o’ Compton pulled the trigger, and Alice struck his arm with her frail white hand. I saw the flash with unblinking eyes, and at one instant both he and I realized that he had missed his mark. He turned, curs- ing, and with the full force of that terrific arm struck Alice tothe ground. As her pale, , blood-streaked face sank out of sight, every man in the horrified crowd fired, and the shattered glass sprang singing from the frames as the bullets whistled through. But a second afterwards John o’ Compton reap- peared, and fired a second shot at random. So rapidly had all this passed that I had time to see one of the revenue officers clap his hand to his side after this second dis- charge, before I felt Meg’s grasp around my comichbooks.com :