D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

106 The Lodestone of Friendship. Fiscal Office; its prow was run into the wall, and out of the windows the clerks could peer into the splintered hold, where the broken chains of the slaves crossed’ the seats in confusion. Tihe ship which conveyed them, in despair of enter- ing after the galley closed the gorge, had stood out to sea. It might be weeks before she brought in news of herself. The long and snaky Frenchman had gone to pieces on the Moor’s head, a black rock conspicuous at the time but worn later to a fragment, little recalling the shape which ‘won the title. It was two miles east of Salinas. Being armed for war, its magazine had caught fire, per- haps from lightning, and the half out of water was burned to the edge. Before she ran among the reefs, the commander had carefully confided to this own gig a passenger of special charge, with a picked crew under this next officer. Indeed, the latter passenger was the cause of the Messier (for Pedro'was correct) being dispatched on this fatal expedition. Even on a warship, at the dread interval which a boat is singled out to try to save one from the impending doom, a murmur may be heard at a choice being given when the spectators, though of a time and country where aristocracy ruled in everything, are equalized before death. But they gladly let the passenger depart, believing him the Jonah. The “‘send-off” was an ironical cheer. It could not be said that he and the officer, who occu- pied the stern-sheets with the four oarsmen, felt any superiority in being detached from the ship. The cockle- shell thad little more chance of salvation unless the hur- ricane should scorn its insignificance. “The Jonah” did not look his part. He was a man of fortitude. When under the Spanish fire he had borne himself like an old soldier, always a philosopher. He had kept on deck, in spite of the captain’s remonstrance. His very tall and broad form, well above the bulwarks, kept erect even when a ball whistled among the rigging. Yet with his brown and ruddy complexion, contented EMORMIE LOCOS .(EC)