Beadle's Dime Novels No. 300: The Crested Serpent — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

©A NIGHT RIDE. Beet | ark - “ Senorita, the music you hear is from the encampment of ~ the Tigers.” | “ Whose hands play upon the strings of the harp rie “ The hands of the Tiger's wife.” i “ Her death-dirge must be music wilder than that. It must be strong and wild, as if the eternal hills had burst forth in wild refrains.” ‘Tt shall be, Senorita Paula.” | | “ Can music, with all its subtle charms, find a responsive echo in the heart of this cruel, relentless woman of Arabia? God endows the human family with these gifts, us he gives to the artist the power and infinite genius to paint the golden halo that rings our Redeemer’s brow. The impassioned elo- quence of song has caused strong men to weep—to go into battle as though their divinity rested upon the cannon of their enemies, and to raise their voices in praise to the God whose name they had profaned. The poet paints the word, but the genius of music immortalizes it, as it rises tremblingly, as on the wings of a bird, up into the tall spires of pillared cathe- drals, and takes living form among the angels that are there to bear it-whence it came. How is it that from this valley I_ hear in the mountain the voice of the murderer of my father, almost weeping in the pathos of a song? It is a mockery, and the tongue of the Tigress that gives volume to the ibspi- ration of some child of song, should wither before it pollutes the pure air of the mountain.” “ Mexico ie cursed with many such strangers as the Ara- bian woman and her husband. It is our duty to our country to destroy them,” said Humfredo, as Paula ended her appar- ent soliloquy. e “ And we will destroy them, Humfredo. From vow until this land of ours is no longer desecrated by the footsteps. of these invaders and usurpers, I devote my life and fortune to my country’s service —for love of country and for revenge.” They were riding. away from the mountain-spur, and had entered upon a broad and level prairie. Their steel spurs jingled in concert with the movements of their spirited horses, and they rode on until the Pleiades shone from the tee with an ethereal sheen. _ They had passed the prairie and were enteri ing a strip ‘of > cComicbooks: coms ; oe —- - ¢ ——