Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 348 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 348: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Page 328 This is a page of running prose from the penny dreadful *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*. The text describes an urgent rescue scene: Captain Tulloch has sent an emergency message summoning help, and a group including two physicians rushes to a pool where they find an unconscious man (Knatchbull) on a makeshift stretcher. They carry him to a house and the physicians begin attending to him while enslaved workers and Caribs gather outside, simultaneously alarmed and excited by the drama unfolding. The passage emphasizes Knatchbull's reputation as a kind master and the servants' emotional investment in his fate.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
328 Tom ANDERSON, DarE-DEVIL Help! Come as quick as you can. Bring Mac. TULLOCH. Pointing wildly, chattering like a crazy thing, the Carib — it was Macaya — led on. “Tf help’s needed, we may follow you?” cried the Mar- uls. ° “Come right on, boys!” ejaculated Pomeroy. The two physicians were in the saddle; De la Jon- quiére and Tom followed. ‘That crazy ape has ta’en to the bushes again,” mut- tered Mac. “He gangs through the woods like a glimmer- gowk,’’ as his horse stumbled over a log. Macaya did not take them to the house, but straight to the pool under the lion’s mouth. Here the splendid sunrise kindled a queer scene. Captain Tulloch had wrenched the lattice-door of a summer-house from its hinges, — it was heavy with roses, —and on this stretcher lay a man rolled in blankets. Half a dozen Caribs lifted the stretcher and carried it up the long jessamine walk to the house. Tulloch seemed well-nigh distracted. ‘He’s insensible; that’s all I know,” he groaned. “Hurry! Hurry!” They laid Knatchbull on the bed. The two physicians fell to work. Tom and Eugéne chafed the hands of the un- conscious man. Out of doors the blacks ran hither and thither, cackling like half a hundred guinea-hens. Now and then a ghoulish face peered in at one window or another, and vanished. They were alarmed by the collapse of a siant, but they enjoyed the excitement of “the issues of life and death.” The master, lying there in that splendid room, they re- garded as a sort of magnificent chief. [hey had a doglike attachment for him; for, be it said, Dick Knatchbull was as kind a master as the sun ever shone upon, not except- ing the planters of Antigua, whose “singular leniency ”’ has passed into history. None the less did the Caribs riot in this occasion for unstinted excitement. Around the bed of the unconscious man four others m ECOMMIECOOOKSae©