Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

Roanoke of Roanoke Hall. 49 ‘‘Forwards, my lad, forwards, and with speed; the tide is making fast.” I rode on as fast as I dared until I saw ahead the vague outline of the stake he had told me of. I turned my trembling beast to the right, and was about to set forward once more, when, from the mist behiud me, in the very opposite direction to that which I was about to take, I heard the deep voice of the Man of the woods trolling out with ever-di- minishing clearness: ‘* A barrel to broach, and a gauger to fight— A blood-red stain on the sea-sand white Is all you will find of the cargo.” It was a snare, then. I was left there alone, at night, surrounded on every side by measureless, impassable, shivering sands, to sink unmissed, unmarked, into their fathom- less depths, or to be swept away by the rising flood. ’ What was to be done? I had seen enough of the path we had recently travelled to know that to follow John o’ Compton, guided only by the uncertain sound of his voice, meant inevitable destruction. To attempt to ride © comichbooks.com