Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

72 THE WRONG MAN. into the moon.ight, dancing on the ridges of the circling undulations which spread around the spot. But the water refused to conceal the object which had been committed to its depths. It sunk for a moment, when, as if some ill-fastened weight had dropped from it, it rose again, and drifting out beyond the shadow of the bank, exposed, as the moonlight fell upon it, the livid features of a corpse. As this spectacle drew the attention of the person on the tree, he hurried to the extreme end of the trunk, in the hope, probably, of catching the body as it was borne past by the ecdy. But the current had already whirled it far beyond his reach, and as it was thus carried along, rising and falling on the billows, its glazed eyes and clenched teeth visible in the moonlight, it would have required no great stretch of imagination to fancy its features distorted by a grisly smile of vengeance. The person on the tree seemed greatly perplexed by this event. He had partly stripped off his clothes as if with the intention of plunging into the stream and bearing the body back to the shore, when his purpose was interrupted by approaching sounds. He started, listened for a moment, then caught up his garments in haste, and walking as rapidly over the old and slippery trunk as the darkness would permit, sprung upon the beach, and glided into the edge of the wood. The outline of his figure had just mingled with the darkness of the forest, when the nature and cause of the noises became apparent. The music of a violin, mingled with loud talk and laughter, was now borne distinctly on the air; and in a few minutes the long, slender form of a keel-boat glided round the neigh- boring point. Its crew were collected in a group on the for- ward part of the deck, some of them engaged in a rude encounter of wits, while others, reclining in a lazy, listless posture, idly listened to the notes which one of their number drew from a tuneless fiddle, or gave ear to the coarse sallies and repartees of their comrades. A short, thickset person at the opposite end of the boat, whose business seemed to be to guide her course, stood leaning with folded arms across the uller, his hard and weather-beaten features twisted into an expression of chagrin, which very plainly showed he did not . enter into the mirth of the others. Conmiclooolks.conn - —_— ——