Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 311 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 311: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "The Marquis of Carabas" (page 293). The text depicts an emotional reunion between Tom and Ishmael, an enslaved man, set during the American Revolution after the fall of Charleston. Ishmael, who was separated from Tom and sold to the West Indies, has been reunited with him. The passage includes dialect speech and concludes with a scene where Tom destroys a banjo—apparently a cherished possession—in despair, swearing never to sing in the streets again.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE Marguis oF CARABAS 293 Tom wrung the devoted hands; but no words would come. “I knowed yer voice, fust. Soon es I got closter, I knowed dat little mouf 0’ yourn, en’ dem pretty teef —” Tom laughed. Ishmael looked shocked. The black fell a-weeping. Ihe Virginian was stony. It was a long time before the two stories were told. After the fall of Charleston, Ishmael had been seized, with a number of other negroes, and sold in the British West Indies. His distress over Tom’s humiliation was sore. Homesickness, too, weighed him to the earth. ‘‘Marster in dat rotten ole prison-ship; de Heir done tuk prisoner in Charleston; Lil’ Marse wid he toes in de dutt — er pickin’ de banjo fer er livin’! — en’ me in tar- ment! Lord, look down!”’ It was hard upon midnight when the old canoe crawled across the Bay. Unaka heard a splash — and there was the banjo floating away on the tide: the thing they’d sold so many fish and turtles to buy. Tom snarled: “Let her go! I'll never sing in the streets again!”’ CORNICLOO eS (C©) mn