The Wrong Man — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

ha * om * : rr A SHADOWY FORM. 5O fsland a number of buatmen, whose ark, or “ broad-horn,” as it Pag called in the language of the country, lay fastened at the beach, had built a fire on the bank, which shed its red glare far Over the scene, and gave a picturesque effect to the persons of the crew as they passed to and fro about the flames. The precise spot to which the attention of the reader is in- _ vited was a small, projecting headland on the Ohio side, round _ which the current swept with greater rapidity than elsewhere, denoting that the channel at that place ran close along the _ shore. The fresh, earthy color and beetling shape of the bauk __ «showed it to have been worn away by the attrition of the water. § _ From its-edge, the bodies of several large, fallen trees, whose roots had been left by the soil, projected to a considerable dis- tance over the current. The ends of the broken branches pro- traded beyond the line of shadow, and were tipped by the moon- _ beams, which also gave the brightness of quicksilver to the ripples and eddies that played round the fragments which de- seended into the tide. A little rivulet, near this place, after _ having pursued its way in darkness through the bed of a gloom - ravine,came gushing and gurgling out from the forest, and, mingling its waters with the Ohio, contributed to swell the broad.and sparkling volume that rolled through the silent _ scene. Nothing save the plash and purling of this little brook _ as it fretted over the obstructions of its channel, broke the deep stillness which brooded over the Ohio shore. The leaves, with dew, woes almost motionless from the branches; = or w slightly stirred, their low, rustling, whispering so rather hightened than interrupted the repose of nature. “ All was so stil, so soft, in carth and air ou scarce would start to meet a spirit there.” _ Anda dim; shadowy form that stole out from the jaws of the __Yavine might almost have been taken for a spirit, so indistinct Was the outline of its figare, which seemed rather like a maas _ Ofdarkness deeper than the surrounding gloom, than the sub- _ stintial form of a man. He moved slowly forward, and seemed 3 ing under the weight of something which he carried on < On reaching the margin of the river, he threw this from him, and it fell with a dull, heavy sound to the sand. He then flitted across the beach into the mouth of the ravine, _ whence he directly after again emerged, bearing something -. which, from a ~~ and sinner ane = not — Oras Bape of smaller compass, than the former burden. Throwing it to | ; the at the place where his first luad had , he knelt down beside it, and in that posture _ continues several minutes. He then rose, and :eemed to be dragging something the sand which required the exer- - Comcboeksscom<