D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

The Phantom Bell. 131 munity looks upon chance as the paymaster—that is, they rob any next comer! The truce has shut up the warships in the docks to rot—their crews are idling or joining the armed beggars who impede the road. I vow to your highness that a bishop sets out from one town to another with a small army to clear the way! They would stop a saint, and if ‘he kept a carriage, like the present-day saints, they would not only hamstring his horses, but make a fire of the coach and eat the horses roasted by it! “If that chief Soleiman had all his tribe around him, the news that he had a million or so of pieces in ‘this sack would let loose the locusts, bitterer than Africa’s! What will be left of a million-and-a-half if he has to be sifted through the beggars, ‘the gentlemen of the night,’ the governors, the Holy Inquisition, the corregidors, the al- caldes and their alguazils—not a milrei! Look you, I have been on the deep—a prey to the sharks; well, I would sooner leap in among them than ride from here to Bayonne with that sum at my saddle-bow!”’ “What have I done?” wailed Donna Jacinta, wringing her hands and looking so pitiful that D’Artagnan was sorry that he had spoken so truthfully. “What have you undone?” responded he, with sever- ity, only pretended this time. ‘As pretty a piece of work as has been schemed in our times. But I may overtake the bearer of the precious bag! Oh, I am forgetting an- other important matter! The duke, your lord, where is the duke, my lady?” Both the women looked dismayed again. “T suppose you are awaiting him here? A capital, out-of-the-way nook, is it not?” seeker falls to the ground. I have not been long here and in the sister kingdom, but it is a truism that I heard, to wit: the Duke and the Duchess of Braganza were in- separable!” “Tf love had not counseled that union, sir,” returned the duchess, sternly, “self-preservation would have done so. Together, the hirelings would hardly have dared assassinate us; such a double tragedy would elicit too (C(©) Gomicbooks