Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 237: what you’re looking at

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

re Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. 231 . permit May, in her state of health, to stand ’. about the sloppy banks, but she was able to watch our progress from the windows. By the time, however, that we had arrived at the layer of massive stones which lay beneath the bridge, even that’ participation in the ex- citement of our search was impossible for her. The stones were firmly cemented together, and it was a long business and hard toil to make an impression upon them. It was done at last, and with a beating heart I watched the centre one heaved ponderously from its testing-place. Below yawned a stone-lined cavity, into which nota single drop of water had penetrated, so stoutly had it been built. In it stood a large, iron-bound, oak chest. Slowly it was raised, and carried by stag- gering laborers into the house. Its contents, when it had been forced open, surpassed our wildest expectations :—gold and silver plates and dishes, jugs and ewers, many of which my father-in-law remembered to have seen; two large bags of coin, anda great heap of articles of jewelry and precious stones shone before our dazed and startled eyes. Beneath all lay a strip of parchment, a ad comicbooks.com