Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 280 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 280: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page from "Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil" This is a page of running prose (page 262) from a Victorian penny dreadful serial. The text depicts dialogue between characters about attending a Christmas sermon and riding to Colibri, followed by a detailed description of Dick Knatchbull's expressive eyebrows. The narrative then shifts to describe a slave auction in Bridgetown, where characters named Unaka (identified as Cherokee) and Tom communicate covertly, revealing that Unaka has smuggled himself aboard a ship departing Charleston Harbor with a letter from Chief Sumter.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
262 Tom ANDERSON, Dare-DEvIL me your glass a minute, Lord Harry. Yes; there he is. I must have that boy to sing for me.” “You are not going out to Colibri to-day?” “I’m going with you to hear the bishop’s Christmas sermon, if youll let me. Then, I must ride out to Colibri. But I’ll present myself at dinner to-night.” Lady Amy’s answer was a casual nod. What she said was: — “There go the bells. The old sexton at St. Mary’s thinks he’s accomplished a feat if he gets in one stroke ahead of the cathedral bell. The chapels would not dare precede the cathedral.” “Just what I might have expected!”’ muttered Dick, and his eyebrows, set obliquely above his sardonic eyes, were drawn down into a black letter V. [hose eyebrows of Dick’s had wonderful angles. In fact they seemed to assume any angle, like a moth’s wing, slanting this way or that at the suggestion of the fiery ego. Somebody once declared that Dick Knatchbull’s eyebrows were as satiri- cal as if they’d been made by “two strokes of Pope’s pen!” The bidding was brisk at the man-sale in Bridgetown, the following day. Ihe blacks were huddled in an enclosure off the market-place; and one after another they mounted the block and were rapidly auctioned off. Unaka, un- der cover of vociferous chaffering, spoke to Tom—1in “chunks” of Cherokee. The two had had no opportunity for talk on the vessel. Unaka had come to Charleston with a letter from the great Chief — Sumter —to Emathla. The letter was safe. — How Tom’s eyes glowed! — Unaka had trailed Emathla to Lord Rawdon’s Headquarters. He followed when Higgins and the Hessians came out with their prisoner. At daybreak Unaka paddled a bateau out to the Nancy Ireson, offering a string of fish. No man who might be sold in the Caribbean Sea was ever hurried off the decks of the slaver. When the brig slipped out of Charles- ton Harbor — a skulking craft against a blood-red sky — she carried a stowaway. [The Cherokee made the worst EONMMICOOOKSa(e©) m