Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 180 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 180: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil* (page 164). The text describes a dramatic execution scene: a Cherokee man accused of being a spy is about to be hanged by angry levies, but a girl named Sukey Wade and a man called Going Snake intervene to cut the rope and free him. The passage emphasizes melodramatic emotion—the prisoner's impassioned plea of innocence, the girl's anguished screams, and the violent chaos of the attempted rescue.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
164 Tom ANDERSON, DaRrE-DEVIL was taken from the captured arms — in the Tories’ Cave. Here was his death-warrant!— a dispatch from General Phillips to Lord Rawdon. The levies were yelling for a rope. “Hang him! String him up!” shouted the voices of revenge and greed. “Prisoner, what have you to say for yourself?” “Tam innocent. This Cherokee 1s the son of a chief who lost his life because he was the white man’s friend. For God’s sake, don’t take the life of a brave, noble fellow! He’s ignorant and innocent! I swear it by the Most High God!”’ His passion would have made a dead man’s flesh creep. The clamor halted. The man whose hand was missing growled, “Better swing ’em doth up!’ — “Fetch that plough-line, yan.”’ In an adjoining field two girls were “ploughing out”’ the young corn. Hot-foot ran half a dozen men to cut the rope from the mule’s back. One of the girls followed the men carrying off her rope. No plough-line, no corn. So she came along, crying, wiping her tears away on the tail of her bonnet. Between her and the howling levies in the road was a rail fence. When one end of the rope flew up in the air and fell over the limb of a persimmon tree in the road — she understood. In a breath she was poised on the top-most rail, staring in a trance of terror at a dusky-faced young fellow, with eyes like a hunted stag’s. A singsong voice was announcing: — “We have determined to release the Indian. He is de- clared by the bearer of British dispatches to be ‘ignorant and innocent.’ If the condemned spy has anything to say, let him speak!” The girl burst into shrieks. “Is thish-yur er revival er a hangin’? Do about, there!” Sukey Wade’s screams rose high above the din of voices. Mad hands seized the rope. The knife of Going Snake slid through it! Tumult!— with a vengeance! Panther- like screams for help! Sukey Wade, clutching the top rail with her bare toes, like a bird, signaled a cloud of dust. Eomicbooks: Go m