The Argosy — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

TRE ARcosy.] The Miller's Revenge. 61 he said at last to his nephew, ‘one way or another, this sort of thing must be brought to an end. I will watch in the mill with my big pistol, and will either shoot the thief or catch him next time he comes. In one, two, three, four nights it will be time enough for me to begin my watch. Ha! ha! I will shoot Monsieur le Farceur. He shall amuse himself at my expense never again.’ “As Lebrun had decided, so he acted. On the fourth night after the’ third robbery he sent Gaspard to bed at his usual hour; and then, having fastened up the little establishment in the customary way, he ensconced himself behind a bundle of empty sacks in one corner of the mill, armed with a huge old horse-pistol, into which he had crammed a couple of bullets, and twice as much powder as was necessary, and which, should an occasion for using it arise, was rather more likely to explode than to go off properly. Lebrun had also with him a small dark- lantern. ‘For three consecutive nights the miller watched and waited, with the fierce patience of an old fox, for the coming of his prey ; and for three nights his waiting was in vain. On the fourth night, Lebrun was alone in the mill, Gaspard having gone to Rozel late in the afternoon with a load of flour, and with instructions to stay all night at Rozel, and return early next morning with a load of corn, which a customer had promised to have ready for him by that time. “Gray, hook-nosed, cunning-eyed old Pierre, had been dozing lightly in his lair, when, towards two o’clock in the morning, he heard some- thing that caused him to prick up his ears, and brought back his scattered senses with a shock. He took a firmer grasp of his pistol, saw that his dark-lantern was ready to his hand, and raised himself noiselessly on his knees. The noise which he heard proceeded from the outside of the building, and could be caused only by some one who had no business in that remote spot at such an uncanny hour. As already stated, the mill had but one window, or opening, which was rather high up im the wall, and had two upmnght iron bars running across its inner side, as a security against thieves, but had no other framework, and was left entirely unglazed. From Lebrun’s hiding-place in the inner darkness of the mill, this window showed like a faint blue transparency against the bright starlight outside. The noise ceased, and presently, to his intense astonishment, Lebrun saw, first the head, next the shoulders, and then the body of some unknown person, apparently of the feminine gender, come into view, bit by bit, as it cautiously ascended—like a stage-ghost rising through a trap-door to slow music—till the whole body became visible, dimly outlined against the starlit sky, as it stepped noiselessly on to the windowsill. Lebrun did not require to be told by what means the ledge had been gained. Outside the mill, on two stout nails, hung a short ladder, of which he made use in many ways; but to-night had seen it put to a service for which its owner had comicaocks (GO)