Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 261 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 261: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "The Duel" (page 243). The text depicts a dramatic sword fight between two men, observed by characters named Tom and Rory. After the duel ends with one man falling, chaos erupts as characters rush to aid the injured figure. The passage includes Scottish dialect and melodramatic descriptions of violence, with Rory's passionate Scottish loyalty emphasized as he prepares to carry the injured "Chief" (apparently Roderick McIntosh) to safety. The prose emphasizes sensation and emotional intensity characteristic of the genre.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE DUEL 243 final stroke of midnight rang out, Colonel Lloyd let fall the handkerchief. There was a sliding, steely, gliding sound. Tom saw — as through ground glass — two agile figures that swerved and stooped, rushed together and recoiled; two swords that bit, and parted, and bit again. Sometimes a blade shot out like a dragon’s tongue. Sometimes it fell like lightning. “He means to reach Troupe’s life through that rose!” And even as the mutter fell from ‘Tom’s stiff lips, the baro- net’s sword touched the flower — and was struck upward. Tom was in the bondage of nightmare. He longed to yell —and could not. But Rory, forgetting everything in the madness of that conflict, roared out, “Weel matched!” Who heeded him? Down there they would not have heeded a thunderbolt. Now Rory was swearing like a mule- driver. A-h-h! Something went spinning up in the air — fell over on the altar. T’om’s red-hot eyes saw a man drop backward. Rory got upon his legs — with the roar of a baited bull. Tom seized him. “Wait, I tell you. The American’s Troupe !” “Then tak tent o him, laddie. If The McIntosh has been killed, this toun will be warse than a den o’ tigers the nicht!”? And Rory went crashing down the stairs and burst upon that group — three white-faced men stooping over him outstretched on the floor. “T’? God’s name — Is he gone?” ‘“He’s fainted. Help me, Rory,” cried out Colonel Lloyd. . “Fetch a stretcher —”’ “Stand aside,” bellowed the big Scot. “Stretcher be domned! Canna Roderick McIntosh tak his Chief on his shoulder?’ The leaven of Scotch fealty could leaven the whole lump of humanity! He turned one look, terrible in its passion, on Troupe. “Ye hae laid oot the corpse ower airlie!’’ — for the floor was strewn with flowers which Troupe had dashed from an altar vase to get water for the fainting man. Rory stooped CORNICIOO® eS (C©) im