Beadle's Dime Novels No. 3: Myra, the Child of Adoption — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

A SMELL OF BURNT PAPER. 65 seemed pouring itself out in tears, Ross turned softly and stole from the room. A few brief minutes the old negro gave to his sorrow. Then amid his tears he remembered the last words of the dead. He did but pause to close, with reverent hands, the eyes that still seemed regarding him with earnest command. He did but compose the lifeless limbs, and draw the sheet over those loved features, before he went down to obey the last behest of the dead. The poor old man went forth from the death- chamber, guided by the gray dawn. His tread was slow and mournful. You could scarcely hear him as he passed along, for it seemed to him that the faintest sound might disturb his master. . He reached the library; his hand was upon the latch; he turned it with a cautious regard to sound, not with premedita- tion, but because the death-scene he had witnessed made the least noise appear to him like sacrilege. But the door re- mained firm. It was evidently locked within, for through the keyhole streamed a faint light, and with the light came an indistinct sound of rustling papers and the cautious tread of a footstep. The old man bent his eye to the keyhole and looked in. Directly within the range of his vision stood Mr. Clark’s escritoir wide open, and by it was Ross searching among the papers in an ebony box, which the old man knew as the re- pository of his master’s most valuable documents. Ross took from this box a voluminous parcel, thrust it in his bosom, and carefully locking the escritoir, held up the light and look- ed timidly around as if fearful of the very silence. Then, with a quick, noiseless tread, he passed across the room. His face was deathly pale, and the old negro saw that the lamp shook and swaled in his hand. There was a fireplace in the room, but the door commanded no view of it, and the old man strained his sight in vain to secure further knowledge of what was ing within the library. But if his eye was baffled is ah Mcackncd keen, and that was directly startled by the sharp rustle of papers apparently torn apart in haste ; then the whole room was filled with a glare of light. There was a sudden and faint crackle as of some hastily kindled flame passing up the chimney. Then all was dark and hush- ed once more. The lamp seemed extinguished; a little smoke, . 3 comiclbocls.<oini J A