Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 355 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 355: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from the serialized story "An Indian Secret" (page 335). A character in his study reads from a history book about an indigenous plant called "hai arry," a vine whose narcotic root the Indians use to poison water for fishing. Excited by this discovery—apparently seeking a method to accomplish some unstated purpose—he paces about, declaring he's outwitted someone called "Voodoo" and identifying his quarry as "the deepest devil i' the Windward Islands." Before leaving his study, he retrieves two vegetable objects from his wallet (text cuts off mid-sentence).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN INDIAN SECRET 335 Uninterrupted thought: this was the luxury he craved. On this particular night he took his pipe into the little hot, stuffy den he called his study; nor heeded heat and stuffiness. He had to think. “Tf I only knew a word of that cannibal’s lingo!” After a long smoke, he took down from a bookshelf a dingy old “History of Central America.” The search was a tedious one, but he found at length the dimly remem- bered passage. He read: — Another indigenous plant deserving of mention is the haz arry, a papilionaceous vine, the root of which contains a powerful narcotic, and is commonly used by the Indians in poisoning water to take fish. The Indians beat the root with heavy sticks till it is in shreds like coarse hemp: they then infuse it, and throw the infusion over the area of the river or pool selected. In about twenty minutes every fish within its influence rises to the surface: and is either taken by hand or shot with arrows. A solid cubic foot of the root will poison an acre of water! He sprang to his feet and paced softly up and down, swearing in a whisper. “Well, I’ll be domned!”’ He was fairly luminous with mentality. In that high state of nervous excitement he was a youth again. It was transforming. “I hae twisted Voodoo’s tail this time,” chuckling. He had practiced for more than thirty years among all sorts and conditions — and shades — of humanity. Few things surprised him. Fewer excited him. But the events of this day had stirred him to the bottom. “Whoever he 1s, he’s the deepest devil v the Windward Islands!” But who was her “There’s but one way to find out: go dumb!” But before he left his shabby little study — wherein was his only refuge from. whining humanity — he drew from his portemonnaie two vegetable ravelings enclosed GomiGcsoo SS (F©)