Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 122 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 122: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil" (page 106). The text describes Tom hiding in a hut while evading detection by hostile forces—apparently "murderous Tories" and "Hornbuckle's gang"—while concerned about warning someone named Unaka. After weeks of isolation, Tom ventures out at twilight to fetch water from a spring in a cavern, where he is startled to hear an unexpected human voice calling out a name in the darkness. The narrative emphasizes Tom's stoic refusal to complain despite his perilous circumstances.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
106 Tom ANDERSON, Dare-DEVIL top of a boulder a few rods away, a motionless, waiting figure, cut against the last red line of light in the west. Unaka! He stole away to the hut, barred the door, and did not come out until it was day. Now his sole task to evade the eye of an Indian! He had been within earshot of murderous Tories. Where could they have been? And Unaka could not come and go unseen by Hornbuckle’s gang! “And I can’t warn him!” The sun rose and set — how many times? [Io him who lay hidden behind that barred door, the firelight choked with ashes to further concealment, the days and nights resolved themselves into periods of listening. The drouth-dried leaves crackled under every sly, hairy foot that stole by. So, as a naturalist from a single bone reconstructs some four-footer of a bygone style in bones, from the fugitive sounds out of the night and the wilderness the listener identified each prowler in the skulking procession. One night a child cried round the walls. But [om had heard a panther’s whimper ere this. Cut off from communication with friendly humanity, held in mysterious captivity, his ultimate fate unknown, menaced by Egger, harrowed by fears lest Unaka suffer violence,— or any friend who might come to his rescue,— [om yet refused to commiser- ate himself. He hated whining. “I’d rather be a toad, and live upon the vapors of a dungeon’’— than a whiner! However, at this time he’d never tried a dungeon, nor a toad’s rations either. These experiences were to come. For many a week he had seen no face. It was only at twi- light that he ventured out of doors now. Firewood and water must be had. One evening he started off for the spring in the cliff. The twilight was snuffed out in the neck of the white cavern; but, familiar with the spot, he no longer balked at the black darkness within. In dense gloom he knelt down and filled the water-jug. In the tomblike stillness he heard breathing! No beast could reach this hole! A voice, deep, serene, resonant: “Hmathla?” He tried to run; slipped to his knees in the little stream; made ECONMMICOOOKS.(e© m