Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 353 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 353: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled *An Indian Secret* (page 333). The text describes a man named Saunders Macglashan admiring a tropical garden and marble pool, particularly praising a statue called "the Ganges Woman." It then shifts to depict another character, Macaya, crouching by the water's edge who deliberately drowns a butterfly—an "Emperor of Morocco"—in what appears to be a casual, troubling act of cruelty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN INDIAN SECRET 333 beauties of Colibri. The green eyes — with red specks in "em — were everywhere. They missed no fraction of the loveliness of the place and the hour. The man rejoiced in his lively sense of the beautiful. He was just as suscep- tible to its amelioration as he was to that of his pipe. -“Look o’ that fallow, now!”’ A ruby-throat hung — a jeweled clapper — in a lily’s bell. The doctor gazed at it with a mellowing spirit. He looked at nothing in this world with envy; at every beau- tiful thing with ecstasy. The lattices enclosing the pool below the Lion’s Mouth were resplendent with tropical roses, — white and crimson, — and morning-glories were hung in curtains of Pavonian purple between the marble basin and the sun. And the Ganges Woman suffered the mists to fall away from her white symmetry. That mo- ment her water-jar had been poised on her head. She was about to glide away, and be gone! Saunders Macglashan gazed through a cloud of tobacco smoke in grateful appreciation. “Her jar is full— as ye ken by the prominence o’ the neck muscles, and the hand on the hip. Tammie Banks is an anatomist, I winna deny. He pits mood and muscle into marble. Could onything be mair true to flesh and blood? He breathes the breath of life intil the cauld stone. She’s just ganging!—I am ashamed o mysel’ that | dinna step oot of her way!” The soft churning of the stream into the marble basin was the only sound that met the ear. He peeped through the foliage — and went rigid as a setter winding a covey. Flat among the tulips bordering the basin lay Macaya, his neck craned over the water, his tongue thrust out like a lizard’s. Very cautiously he brought the tip of this member in contact with the crystal surface. A moment of cogitation followed. Then he stretched a hand out. Between his knotty thumb and forefinger he held, care- fully enough, a butterfly, a brilliant “Emperor of Mo- rocco.” He dropped his captive into the water. It made one effort to fly, and fell back, dead. CORNICIOO® SS (CO) mm