Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 314 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 314: what you’re looking at
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# Page 296 from Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil This is a running prose page from a Victorian penny dreadful. The text describes Tom's double life as a clerk by day and a runaway slave by night, living on a Caribbean island. De la Jonquière shows Tom the island's landmarks, including Mount Hillaby and "Scotland" (the island's highlands), while discussing Tom's encounters with Dick Knatchbull and his entourage. The passage ends with a mysterious reference to a dangerous reef, which De la Jonquière calls "the mastiff on the doorstep"—suggesting it will prove significant to the story's climax.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
296 Tom ANDERSON, DareE-DEVIL ing a reef for a roof, when Tom took lodgings. Away from wild things, the Cherokee would have perished. But his canoe was at the wharf every day: every morning he passed within arm’s length of the new clerk whose desk was in the counting-house window. Iwo dark faces were turned toward each other, their eyes met, and the Indian trudged on. Many a night, leaving his “best” at his lodgings, Tom slipped into his cottonade slave suit and went over to the reef, to sprawl upon the sand by the campfire, happy as a king. “T lead a Sultan of Bagdad sort of existence: Marquis of Carabas by day, desk in Huyck’s counting-house; run- away slave by night, bunking on a sandbar. To-night, as I was about to push off for the reef, the watch asked me for my pass. ‘Who do you belong to, boy?’ he demanded. I heard that baiting laugh of Dick Knatchbull’s — and there he was! — just stepping from his boat, with his ever- lasting Caribs. He looked at the watch. ‘Let him alone, man. He belongs to me,’ said Knatchbull. °Be hanged if I do, Dick Knatchbull!’ I called out. But the watch kow- towed to the Codrington breed, of course. Meantime, Unaka had chucked one of his Caribs in the water, — and we were off.” De la Jonquiére’s laugh would have inspired an ascetic. “You have more adventures than good Haroun-al- Raschid himself. Dick got a nasty blow in then; eh?” “Be quits one of these days.”’ De la Jonquiére loved every foot of the island. He took Tom to the top of Mount Hillaby, to watch the sun come up out of the sea; little dreaming that a day was at hand when life and death would hang upon the coming of the sun to those who watched for it from Mount Hillaby. He led the way through “Scotland,” the rugged, varied, and Banercene highlands on the northeastern side of the is- and. “And there,” said De la Jonquiére, pointing to the ter- rible reef far below,— but a short distance from the shore, — “there’s the mastiff on the doorstep.” ECONMMICLOOOKSa(e©) m