The Blockade Runner — page 236: what you’re looking at

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

@ THE BLOCKADE RUNNER. 237 Menaced by the weapon, above which were the cold gray eyes of Throxton—a man who feared nothing— Powers bit his lip and moved forward. He glared savagely at Bentham, and a muttered curse was heard as he laid hold of the pen. “Write to your first officer, Jones, now on board the Destroyer, as follows,” said Bentham, and he proceeded: “Mr. Jones: On receipt of this you will turn the command of the ship over to the bearer, and submit to him in every particular. | have been detailed on a secret mission of immediate importance. I shall leave Nassau for a time, but will join you ere long. The bearer of this, Captain Randolph, is a thorough sailor and a devoted Confederate ; therefore he is a man who can be trusted. He will sail from Nassau immediately. I am sure that you will obey him and fight the ship under him as you would fight it with me on the quarter-deck. Remember that the Destroyer is to avenge the Swiftwing. Powers.” While Bentham spoke, the privateer’s pen did not touch the paper. He straightened his handsome figure, and glared at the Union gunner with the glittering eves of a jungle tiger. “This is infamy without a parallel!” he exclaimed, as Bentham concluded. “ You would force me to hee come a traitor to the Confederacy. Who is the man designed to play the role of Captain Randolph in this piece of rascality ?” ‘“‘ He stands before you,” answered Bentham, bowing. “You! Then, by the stars of heaven! I will die before I pen a wort of the inessage!”’ And the next moment the pen was hurled from the incensed Con- federate’s hand and quivered in the floor. COMMCOOOKS (©) 5}