Beadle's Dime Novels No. 126: Old Jupe — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

SUDDEN PUNISHMENT, 83 moment! Here is the ladder now, hurrah! we have it. My God, she has jumped.” 7 As the fire began to scorch in its close approach, the be- wildered woman, not conscious of the orders given her, leaped madly to the hard pavement. It was but a single story down, but a shudder ran through the crowd, which knew that she could not escape without injury. One mo- ment more, and she would have been saved. Or her fall might have been broken, had any one been prepared for it. As it was, she came heayily to the ground and was taken up insensible. ‘‘ Dead,” was the first cry, but it was soon found that she breathed, “Oh, massa, dat Miss Annette !” “ Yes, Jupe, I know it.” “Ts she a friend of yours? Come, I will go with you. I am a doctor.” 3 A young gentleman took Luke by the arm, and hurried him forward, seeing that his dread and agitation made him hesitate. | The slender form, still dressed in the white robes which it had put on to ensnare Luke, was taken to a place of compar- ative quiet, and an examination made into the nature of the injuries received by the unconscious victim. Her head and shoulders had endured the full force of the blow when she. struck the pavement; it was the opinion of the physician that she would never revive, but gradually sink and expire without coming out of her comatose state. Shelter, in a quarter avoided by the flames, was at length found for her, and while the fire was gradually dwindling out in the grey dawn, and the smoke fell like a pall over the de- vastated city. Luke sat by the couch watching the last hours of the one who had committed so deep and deadly a wrong against him and his. | In that solemn time he could not say that he forgave An- nette; he was simply awe-stricken at this sudden punishment which circumstance had meted out to her. He could not think of her great sin and its consequences, without a shud- der of aversion. And yet, he pitied her—he could not leave her to die, alone, amid strangers, ; All at once the hitherto motionless eyelids quivered and -. comicbooks.conn