Beadle's Dime Novels No. 142: The Sagamore of Saco — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

sz THE SAGAMORE OF SACO. _ impaled upon the bloody altar, and sent shrieking to the throne of the appeased deitics. At length she turned away, and paced slowly up and down the dim area, which gave out no echo to her restless feet. Here had for ages been performed those religious rites, so se- cretly hidden, that to this day we are left in doubt whether or not the northern Indians offered human beings wpon the altar of sacrifice. Here were deposited the skulls of great chiefs who had perished in battle, or been tortured by their enemies, and had died as became brave men. Skins of serpents and_reptiles dried in the sun, bones and ivory, vases of terra-cotta, thoxns steeped in blood, polished stones and crystals of vast size, were arranged in a niche be- neath a stupendous arch ; and here, couched in crystal, extend- ing fold beyond fold, dry from the dust of centuries, but vivid with the hues of life, was one of those gigantic lizards, (saure,) which might have crept in here before the deluge, and here slept un , an object of superstitious awe to these devo- tees of nature. ’ The grotto of the Pejipscot was not so broad at the entrance as might have been anticipated, but it extended back to a vast distance, widening laterally till it became a gorgeous Jabyrinth, rising arch beyond arch, spreading itself into intermi vis- tas, and assuming unexpected shapes of resplendent grace and beauty—columns from which hung the most delicate tracery ; pendents refl every prismatic hue; vails of network, as if the fairy fingers of the frost had been arrested in their play, and their work rendered eternal in the adamantine stone: as if a ' thousand gnomes of the mine had here collected their : and here wrought a thousand fantastic shapes into forms of It was midday, and the sun, penetrating the sheet of the falls, cast a not uncheerfu! light into the cave, the size and gloom of which were still further relieved by a fire burning in the center. and one or more torches stuck in the fissures of the rocks. With her back to the fire stood Acashee, gazing intently upon the white, liquid, and tumultuous mass which constituted the door or curtain to this strange habitation, A fierce, cold ex- pression rested upon her face, and the last few weeks of toil and pant 1 had done the work of years in plantjng furrows upon At one side of the cave, stretched upon skins of a delicate texture, as if prepared to do great honor to whomsnever should apply them to use, appeared what might have been mistaken for a white vail, excepting that a draft of air caused a portion of it to rise and fall, spreading the filaments, and showing it to bea of humen hair. i of tourre « heel 2 - So still was the recumbent figure, so motionless the tiny. + conmmicldooks.com