D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

The Lodestone of Friendship. 107 eye, frequent smile and springy step, he had more the mien of a rural squire than a martial leader. When the storm struck its successive and increasingly severe strokes, he had borne ‘himself as one whose life had created none of the terrors presented by death to him who ‘has a troubled course. Bluff, ‘broadly merry, drinking twice to others’ once, eating like the fabled gormandizers, he was the cabin jest—but not in his hearing. “He is deported for fear the will breed a famine in France!” declared the table wit. However, a personage of no importance would hardly have had the dispatch-boat set aside for landing him secretly in Spain. He was entitled, in a special passport, which placed all the readers, loyal Frenchmen, at his orders, “‘the Knight of du Vallon de Bracieux et de Pierrefonde ;” but the captain, a noble cadet, assured his brother officers that this triple tithe must be of late creation, as he had never heard of it at court. When the third outburst of elementary wrath smote the Xiphias and the Messter, and reduced the former to a hull and three bare poles dissevered from their roots, the latter was driven ashore and converted into portions which an able-bodied wrecker might convey severally away on his back, the Knight of the Vallon had simply fallen asleep in the open boat, as if his large cloak were water- proof and his feet, in the water at the bottom, were turned to the chimney fire. He'snored, while the officer vapored. “Tihis is a numbskull or a sage,’ observed the lieu- tenant. “Bail her out, boys—she would ride heavily ’ enough without this man-mountain, for she has shipped a hogshead of brine!” Ignorant of the country, as Pedro had guessed from the Messier seeking a pilot, the officer could only search for a suitable place to land. For a long time, particularly in the darkness following the sinking of the moon and preceding the sunrise, the shore was unapproachable. The water conitinued to be thrown up and returned, ac- companied by the torrents from the rain; the cliffs were furrowed; stones pelted down, and landing would have CORNICE LOOKS (C(O)