Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 131 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 131: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# This Page This is running prose from the narrative body of a Victorian penny dreadful titled "Hornbuckle's Secret" (page 115). The text describes a tense moment where a character named Tom, hiding in the thicket, confronts the wounded overseer Egger—a man who has apparently attempted to murder young Anderson. Tom wrestles with the temptation toward revenge, initially planning to let Egger walk into plague-infected areas. However, he is arrested by the memory of a chivalrous motto ("Sans peur et sans reproche"), which compels him to abandon his cruel plan and instead warn Egger by running toward him through the bushes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HOoRNBUCKLE’S SECRET IIS in which the fate of one was settled forever 1s one of the strangest things in Anderson’s wild story. One day, a crunching footstep in the dead leaves. The Gentleman-in-Waiting on Contagion and Death hid him- self in the thicket. He knew it was Egger. It was he, though hardly recognizable. Even in the twilight, it was easy to make out the work of Going Snake’s knife. The overseer was wasted and bloodless. One arm, now useless for life, was braced across his chest. He had been abed for long, nursing his wounds. As soon as he was able to mount his mule, he had set out for the summit of the Blue Ridge, to make sure that young Anderson had been made away with, in the manner planned and agreed upon. The watching eyes in the thicket were like a panther’s. ~Tom’s blood boiled. The frenzy of revenge awoke. And when it took him, it tore him. He laughed under his breath. “I’ve only to sit still and wait!” Egger, pausing every instant to look and listen, ap- proached. “Let him walk the plank! I’ll wait till he gets into the stench of the plague. Then — I'll laugh! laugh till he falls down in a blue funk! laugh till they hear me in hell!” the fury of passion working like poison in him. “Fair and open fight? No! But his hideous cruelty will be punished. Look how he treated me! Oh, I don’t measure my actions by his — but I won’t warn him!” burying his face in the leaves. “Hypocrite and wretch, God means to punish him! God will do it, when He gets ready,’ — and, seizing a root — like a man in a cyclone — he held on to it, while the storm of temptation beat upon him. “T won’t warn him! J won't!” Five words lightened on him. They went through every fiber in him. “Sans peur et sans reproche.”’ Chevalier Bay- ard’s motto had left its meaning in the blood of one brood. “T should be no better than a poisoner!’’ He was on his feet now. He ran. He came crashing through the bushes, on the heels of this skin-and-bone Egger. The man looked over his shoulder. His jaw fell. GOmiGcsoo SS (CO) im