Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 30 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from the serial "The Taking of Helen," page 18. The text depicts a scene at a royal feast where a King questions a man named Nireus about an escort, congratulates him on winning a race, and then presents a mysterious left-handed rayed shell brought by fishermen. When Nireus claims the shell bears his own mark as a gift to the Queen, the King breaks it open to disprove the claim, finding no fish inside. The passage concludes with entertainment—young men dancing and a poet beginning to sing—following the meal.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
18 THE TAKING OF HELEN “Did you go with an escort ?’’ “Yes, with an escort.” “Come, Nireus,” the King said, ‘since you have settled everything, you shall now run.” After beating Brighteyes by eleven yards over a mile, Nireus tried to slip away from the company, but the King brought him back to the guest-house. ‘‘ You must stay for the feast,’’ he said. “It is now about to begin, since the sun is setting. Come, sit by me, at the feast. We have here at the feast a strange thing which you shall see, a rayed shell, twisted the left- hand way; see, there, the strange shell, brought to me by some fishermen. It is marked by a mark like a bird’s beak and eye, which some men say is the mark of the Egyptians, others the mark of rarity, others the mark of him who found it. What mark should you say that it is?”’ “The mark of Nireus of Symé, lord, who sent this shell to your Queen to-day, as a strange thing, that might please her.” The King leaned across the table and broke the shell with his knife. ‘Let us see,” he said, ‘‘whether there be any little fish within the shell. No fish? See, now, we have broken a rarity but learned the truth. There is no little left-hand fish within the left-hand cover.”’ After the feast was at an end, some young men danced to them; then a poet sang to them, about the CORNICLOOKS»EO