Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LADY BESS’S HISTORY 139 on duty all that night, was frequently passing between the farmhouse and the outposts of the column, which were at a little distance, at a suitable place for the bivouac; and totally unsuspicious that such a daring attempt would be made, the officer passed to and fro between the two points, alone and unattended, and smoking his cigar. Christoval and his band lay in ambush at a convenient spot sufficiently removed from the scene of danger, and watching their oppor- tunity, they pounced upon the aide-de-camp, overpowered and gagged him in a moment, and hurried him away. When sufficiently distant from the troops, the gag was removed from his lips, and he was assured of honourable treatment if he attempted no resistance, which indeed he was not in a condition to offer. Under such circumstances was it that the enterprise had succeeded, and he was brought a captive to the tower. “On the following day he was compelled by Christoval to write a letter to the brigadier commanding the column, stating that he was captive in the hands of a guerilla party of Carlists, that the conditions of his release were immunity for themselves and the payment of a certain ransom money, that he requested the column might not advance farther in a northerly direction pending the negotiations for his release, — as if it did, his life would be sacrificed, — that he was unable to specify the place where he was retained . captive, and he concluded by desiring that the bearer of his letter should be treated with a consideration due to the sanctity of a herald under such circumstances. “ With this document Don Diego Christoval himself set off to the farmhouse, the quarters of the brigadier command- ing the column. During his absence, the young officer remained a close prisoner at the tower. He sat smoking in what I have before described as the common room, and unbending toward the women, he chatted frankly and gaily with them. I was there for a portion of the time, and the officer, finding me to be an English woman, was naturally surprised at my presence with that lawless band. Isabella, for the kind purpose oi screening me in case of any subse- quent disaster, told him that I was a prisoner as well as himself, and this was the first time that the fact had ever been positively proclaimed in words. But it was now men- tioned to serve, and not to annoy, and instead of being angry Gomichdoo cS (C(O)