Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 316 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 316: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page from "Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil" This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful serial. The text describes a tropical estate called "Colibri," detailing four life-size statues positioned around a marble basin—works depicting water-carriers from various cultures (including one by sculptor Thomas Banks). The passage emphasizes exotic scenery: banana plants, hummingbirds of different species, and references to Caribbean geography. Characters named Dick and De la Jonquière discuss the statues and the property's name, which appears to derive from a Carib word for hummingbird. The tone is descriptive and sensational, typical of Victorian adventure fiction set in colonial settings.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
298 Tom ANDERSON, Dare-DEVIL brim. Towering banana plants threw long, curving, swing- ing shadows on the water; like the shadows of clashing scimitars. : “Dick has a savage string in him that has to be sounded always. I tell him he would like to add a tomtom to the cathedral organ, down yonder in Bridgetown. Just look at these statues! One is the work of Thomas Banks. One was done to order. Which one, there’s no need to say.” Four life-size statues stood forth against that screen of roses, guarding the four corners of the marble basin. The Great Soldier’s soldier carrying water in a skull to Alex- ander was poignant in its energy, fiery, exalted. A Ganges water-carrier — the river-wind in the folds of her meager marble sart — bore her water-jar as a hawk carries the crest on its head; and the whole figure was as supple and compact in line as a preened hawk. A white marble Bedouin girl, her water-jar on her shoulder, hid herself in her mantle — remote, mysterious, seductive. The fourth statue was startling. It was of bronze,— an Ashantee, carrying water in ostrich eggs. Enclosed in a grass net, her burden was bunched on her back. “Good Heavens!” ‘Dick insists that the caricature gives force to the pure beauty of the three in marble,’ — and De la Jonquiére raised his brows disdainfully. The air was full of the soft purring of hummingbirds’ wings. [hey were everywhere: the améthyste, the ruby- throat, the flame-breast. By hundreds and hundreds they ‘‘— fluttered around the jessamine-stems Like winged flowers, or flying gems.” Not without reason had the West Indian called his place ‘‘ Colibri.” ‘And I believe that’s a Carib word,” observed De la Jonquiére, frowning. “ Dick had his Carib boys capture a number of these little flame-breasts about the old volcano in Guadeloupe, — Soufriére. They love the inner slopes of an extinct volcano.” ECONMMICOOOKS. © m