Beadle's Dime Novels No. 300: The Crested Serpent — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

se. 22 THE CRESTED SERPENT. * : 9 sun. The Aztec eagle, in its southward flight, when our peo- ple wandered as the Israelites, carried it in its talons to where Mexico now rears its temples and strong walls, and nestling in the serpent’s folds it died. From its dust arose the city of the Montezumas, the splendors of which were never dimmed until the Spaniards came like locusts, ate up the vitality of the Aztec, and absorbed their blood. Yet, the Crested Serpent lives, the Aztec rites survive, and the blood of the ‘Montezuma is running in our veins. Will you become one of us, and bow to the Crested Serpent that is as strong as bands of steel, and the bite of which is as poisonous as that of the cobra capello? Answer, Paula Vallejo.” | “TI do,” she murmured faintly. “Drink wine, typical of the blood of our race.” fumfredo handed her a goblet, and she drank. | “One more ordeal and you are bound to us in Aztec blood, and we are sworn to support, defend and guard you. Be courageous and fear not, and keep your eyes upon the altar,” Low, solemn music, as if from the bowels of the earth, rolled and trembled in the chamber. A panel slipped back, and a serpent, with a crest upon his head, looked down upcn the kneeling figure of Paula Vallejo. Its eyes shone with a. white sheen, and it waved its head to and fro, as if keeping time to the music that trembled and rolled in solemn tones through the chamber of supernatural light. It glided down from the aperture, and its sides flashed with all the colors that adorn the reflections of the sun from the icy crags in the polar seas. 4 OPA Pot ERT et oF THE TALISMAN AND THE BIVOUAC. Pavna VALLEJO maintained her position before the high Priestess of the Aztecs. She knew that a terrible ordeat would be Presented to her, and steeled herself to meet it. . The serpent reared its head, and its long form circled ina Comichbooks com ae,