A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

118 A SERVANT OF SATAN. have been seen creeping noiselessly through the gardens of the bungalow, on the first floor of which were located the paymaster’s offices. The leader of the gang, having climbed up on the roof of the veranda, followed by two of his men, gently pushed open a window which had been left ajar. A moment later two pistol-shots rang out in rapid succession, followed by aloud cry. A second afterward another shot was heard. = } Immediately the whole place was in an uproar. On en- tering the room the officers found Frederick Gavard, the pay-sergeant, standing guard over the safe, while near the window lay stretched the dead body of the deserter, Charles. Renier, and on the roof of the veranda outside lay another corpse, also of a deserter, shot through the head. In the garden and on the flower-beds were traces of numerous footsteps, showing that the house had been attacked by a large gang. Six weeks afterward the troops at Padang were formed into a square, and the officer in command of the place sum- moned the pay-sergeant, Frederick Gavard, from the ranks, and pinned on his breast the silver cross which had been conferred upon him by the Governor-General of the Hast Indies for his gallantry in defending the treasure chest of the cantonment against heavy odds. At no period of Frederick’s career did his prospects seem more promising than now. Renier, who had been the only person in the colony who was acquainted with his past re- cord, was dead, and instead of being punished as he might have been for putting an end to the daysof the man who had possessed so dangerous a knowledge concerning him, he had been rewarded for the deed as if it had been one of the most brilliant feats that he could possibly have accom- plished. Not only had he received a decoration ordinarily -conferred for acts of valor on the field of battle, but about three months later he had the pleasure of Jearning that he Eomicbooks.co