Beadle's Dime Novels, No. 11 — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

46 THE PRISONER OF LA VINTRESSE. of his cell looking forth and longing for liberty. In the two months and more of bis confinement, he had changed from the self-reliant, dignified man, to the pale, bowed-down cap- tive. His cheek was tlrin, his beard and hair were grown, and in his eye glittered the restlessness of his soul. Captivity was not his only nor his greatest trouble—he mourned over the unknown fate of Minerva. His efforts to see thé captain of the Eagle had all been fruitless. Some unseen influence outside his prison-walls, with more money and more power than he, was working him injury. He had attempted to ob- tain justice by sending a statement of his case to the American consul, but whether it had reached him he did not know. He had been able in this loathsome place, where punishment “was regulated by the ability of the prisoners, to obtain a bet- ter apartment than the common cells where the sights he saw and the sounds he heard, offended his moral nature. But he was by no means placed in congenial society. His room- mates were, a military man who spent his hours in cursing and gaming, and a planter incarcerated for some political of- fence, who joined his comrade heart and soul in these eleva-— ting amusements. The room was large but not over cleanly. Great webs, black with age and dust, dangled fram the corni- — ces. The walls were disfigured with rude drawings and rader scrawls, in Spanish poetry. ‘Bae floor was dirty and the ceiling obscure. The two prisoners were men of forbid- ding exterior, who when they found Herman averse to join- ing in their immoral practices, assailed him with vituperation albeit it was guarded by eloquent and elegant Spanish. He understood it all, for though unable to converse with fluency in the language, he could read it and translate with ease. To-night the image of Minerva had been more than usually present and distinct. He had fretted himself nearly into a fever in his vain attempts to imagine what she possibly might do, or where go. In the captain of the Eagle he had un- bounded confidence—he knew that she would be placed in a good home. But what if, feeling her lon¢ly and unpro- tected state, she should return? The thought gave him an- guish. Suppose she was already the wife of that intriguing Cuban? It was horror to think. He tried te shut all such images from his mind, but they would return with redoubled comlcdooks.com