Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 36 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis: "The Taking of Helen" This is a page of **running prose narrative** from what appears to be the middle of a serialized story titled "The Taking of Helen" (shown as page 24). The text describes a character moving through dark woodland, hearing an injured animal's cries, then discovering harnessed horses near a chariot. He finds a cloak bearing Queen Helen's scent and royal device (The Swan in gold), suggesting she has recently fled this location. The passage ends with him calling out for someone named Paris, receiving no response. The narrative is tense and atmospheric, mixing Gothic elements (bogs, darkness, danger) with classical allusion.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
24 THE TAKING OF HELEN ing; it stopped when it heard him, but presently cried again, as though the pain had overcome all in- stincts; then, as he drew nearer to it, in the bog, it changed its tone, as a hurt beast will, so that he did not know whereabouts in the thicket it lay. Now it seemed ahead, then to a side, then even behind him, and this in a darkness, on a giving ground, which made him think of what the man had said, how some were swallowed in bogs and others eaten by devils. He skirted the thicket and went on till suddenly he came to a kind of track across his line. He turned down it, out of woodland, into a space of bush and grass, where there was a noise of horses wrenching at their pasture. ‘The horses were almost within reach before he saw them. They moved from him with a rattling of rein on wood that showed him that they were harnessed to a chariot. ‘They were dark brown horses, and as he caught them and held them, he saw that one of them wove. They were cool to the touch, as though they had not been driven for more than an hour. One was bare. Over the other a soft cloak was dragging. The cloak was faintly scented with Queen Helen’s favourite scent of verbena leaf. In one corner he could feel the Queen’s device, of The Swan, done in gold. Plainly the runaways had been there, perhaps were there still. “Paris,” he called, ‘Paris! Are you there, Paris?’’ There was no answer, nor any sound, nor any sight, CORNICLOOKS»eO