Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 158: what you’re looking at

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

LADY BESS’S HISTORY 141 pledge which a Spanish officer was very seldom known to break, and the breach of which would dishonour him. for ever, even in the opinion of his own most intimate friends. Six days had passed, and on the ensuing one, Christoval was to return to the brigadier. On the sixth night I did not hear the young officer go forth as usual between ten and eleven o'clock, to smoke his cigar in the wood. I lay awake, listening, for an idea had sprung up in my mind, and the longer I thought of it, the more consistent and feasible did it become. An hour passed, and all remained silent. I rose from my bed, hurried on a few articles of clothing, stole noiselessly out of my chamber, and listened at the door of the one occupied by the officer. I could hear the regular respiration of one who sleeps. Cautiously did I open his door, and again | listened. Yes, he slept. A candle was burning in the room. I stole in, he was in bed, and slumber- ing profoundly. I hastened to possess myselt of his clothes, and perceiving a quantity of cigars scattered about on the table, took one of them. I was in mortal terror lest he should awake, but he did not, and I regained my own room safely and unobserved. Now for a bold enterprise. I ha- stened to apparel myself in the male costume I had thus seli-appropriated; frock coat, trousers, boots, and shako, — I had taken them all, and I clothed myseli therewith. Then, hehting the cigar and putting it in my mouth, I descended the stairs. The door of the common room was open, and the powerful moonlight streaming through the narrow window fell upon a bright object that lay on the table. It was a pistol, and I lost no time in securing it about mv person. Again I listened; all was quiet. Oh, how my heart palpitated as I opened the door of the tower. It was a fine night in the month of June, but the shade of the embowering cork-trees intercepted the effulgence of moon and stars. The two sentinels were smoking their pipes and conversing together within half a dozen yards of the gate. I passed out, imitating as well as I could the gait and bearing of the Spanish officer, and smoking my cigar in the most approved style. It was a moment of acute suspense, but when I found that the sentinels moved not, and that I was proceed- ing onward without the slightest molestation, the enthusiasm of an indescribable joy flamed up within me. It was the intoxication of triumph. But still I did not lose my presence Gomichoo Ss (EO)