The Blockade Runner — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

THE BLOCKADE RUNNER. — 125 CHAPTER XVI. THE AVENGER’S FIRST VICTORY. WHATEVER wind there had been seemed to have gone down with the sun, and for the last hour the only motion in the air was what was made by the Avenger herself as she steamed along. | The moon rose on a perfectly placid sea, and the marine spectacle, as the two craft approached each other, was beautiful in the extreme. It was a grand tropical night, and the sky, with scarcely «a fleecy cloud in sight, was brilliant with stars. . A deep silence reigned about, broken only by the throb of the cruiser’s engines, which was presently supplemented by a similar vibration, very light at first, from the oncoming vessel. She was within a mile now and her character was established in the night-glass. A two-masted bark-rigged steamer, long and low in the water, the moonlight glancing from the tube of a piece of ordnance on her forecastle. Her side battery was not visible, the oblong ports of both vessels being closed. A Confederate ensign floated lazily from her gaff in rabid defiance of the Yankee cruiser, while a short white pennant hung from the truck of her fore-top- mast. The Avenger’s guns were loaded and ready to be CoOMmicoooks.E@