D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

138 The Duke of Braganza. boatside while executing the half revolving motion and return which is a marvel of propulsion. In twenty minutes they were alongside the rock. It was worn from its original rounded shape to a narrow but flat-topped cone; but though from shore looking in- accessible, its platform was sufficient to hold two or three men standing, while it amply accommodated a man coiled up at the base of the wooden and iron upright, sus- taining the beacon fire. This man was so huddled up that he might have been flung from a height and broken in every bone. His left arm was, however, sound enough to be twined round the mast, as if he had attempted to clamber up out of reach of the cruel tide and its ruin- laden waves. With his right, armed with the rest of a broken sword, he must have struck more by habit than by knowledge of his act, on the ironwork. It was its vibration, which resembled the knelling over the dead. “It is a man!” muttered D’Artagnan, heart-pricked at his obstinacy and disbelief. “All but a dead one. That was his last beat! It is not our Pedro——” “None of our sort,’ mumbled the woman, with eyes out of which the last tear for the drowned had long since flowed. | He was sumptuously clad! Fine linen, a gold’ chain— a gentleman. He seized the armed hand, which relaxed at the touch, utterly spent, and let him extricate the blade as if cogni- zant that friends had arrived. He ran his fingers over the handle. “Fine metal—and finely chiseled—a crown on it! This is no common ship’s officer!. What gilded ball have the sea dogs been playing pellmell with!” Tenderly he lowered the body into the skiff and re- turned carefully himself, as if fearful of oversetting it with a precious cargo. “Turn, and land us! Every moment is valuable!” Remembering this similar strait and how he had been cared for, he pressed the unconscious figure to his bosom, trying to electrify it if not much to warm, since he was chilled; thaw him, share with the deadlike his own vitality. Eomichooks Eo im