A Silver Brand — page 267: what you’re looking at

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

A SILVER BRAND, | 959 noticed it. . But the moment he got up I secured it. Iam sure itis the key that unlocks those odious handcuffs. When I feed Stephano as he allows me, I mean to unlock them if such a thing is possible, and then drop the key again where I found it.” ) : Which last most desirable result she was able to secure. It was a little consolation to know that Stephano’s hands were at liberty, if a fortunate chance gave him oppor- tunity to use them, when inthe damp, dark night they were marshaled out. through the cellar door, along the rocky ravine into the hidden passage-way of the cave. But there were five men to guard them, and a boat’s crew waiting outside. | With shaking limbs and sickening hearts, the poor maid- ens suffered themselves to be placed in the boat, Serena holding fast by Lina’s trembling hand, but clutching also the bottle which she meant to drop over the boat when they reached a spot from which the turning tide would be likely to carry a swimming object toward the island shore of the fishermen’s village. Toward that dim line of shore their eyes turned wistfully and tearfully, but helplessly. Stephano was ordered to the opposite side of the boat, but when the rowers sat down to their oars he was in the way, and they were perforce compelled to allow him to take a place beside his fellow-prisoners. He managed in the dark to extricate a hand from the iron bracelet, and to give to each of them a silent but encouraging pressure, and to whisper: — “Keep up good hearts. There may come an opportunity for help and escape.” The schooner was at anchor a long distance from the island, and it was a tedious and laborious task to row the well-filled boat out to her, and it was long after midnight when they reached her. As they came near the anxious eyes of the prisoners could detect her graceful shape and slender raking mast against the sky, and their hearts beat with a vague hope of rescue when they perceived that she was moored within hail of two other vessels. But as quickly as the hope came it was crushed. The men rowed now with extreme caution, and Jack Robinson, coming over to their seat with an extended pistol, said, in -a stern whisper: “A single outcry from either one sends these balls through the whole of you, and over you go into the water.” Lina covered her eyes, and hid her face on Serena’s Gomicbooks €O