Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 28 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled *The Taking of Helen* (page 16). The text depicts a scene in which a character named Nireus instructs fishermen to deliver a rare twisted shell to Queen Helen as a gift. Nireus marks the shell with a "danger-mark of the Beggars" to authenticate the message, and promises the fishermen meat and wine if they deliver it faithfully. The passage emphasizes the shell's rarity and frames the transaction as an act of devotion to the Queen.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
16 THE TAKING OF HELEN ‘Take it,’ one of the men said. ‘But at the palace they will not let me come to the Queen ?’’ “Then leave it for her, to be taken to her at once.”’ “What message am I to take with it?” Nireus with his knife scratched in small upon the shell the arrow-head and dot which is the danger-mark of the Beggars. He knew that Helen knew this, be- cause he had shown it to her, when they had been talk- ing of marks, a few days before. “Show her this mark, and say that Nireus of Symé sends the shell, as a most rare thing, to her who is peerless.”’ “It is a rare thing,’ one of the fishers said. ‘We draw up shells nearly every day, but never before have we drawn one twisted as that.’’ ‘Queens have ruled men ever since men were chil- dren,’ Nireus said, ‘but never before has a queen like Queen Helen ruled. The unmatched shall go to the unequalled.” The fishers ran their boat into the sea, and stood in the sea beside her, while one of the men packed the shell in a frail. ‘‘Lord,’’ this man said, ‘“‘we have a saying among ourselves, ‘Give the shell to the woman, but eat the fish yourself.’’’ “Give this shell to the woman,” Nireus said, “and you shall eat meat and drink wine, on the faith of a King’s son.”’ CORNICLOOKS»eCO