D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

First Sword, then Sceptre. 173 “By force?” queried he in the bitterest gibing tone. “By all means!” returned Raho. “Good sooth! what means have you?” ‘My lord,” said Fra Benito, at last disclosing himself, as here the others failed to maintain the initiative ; “King Philip, on hearing that you had escaped the just penalty for your continual plotting and high treason, and be- lieving that you might also elude the fate Heaven sent others than you, ordered Admiral Ozario to take up the search for your body—living or dead! On finding that your ship had been pounded to atoms, but that you had been snatched from the calamity i “T guess! one or the other of you, to make terms for the double duplicity—sent word where you had an ap- pointment with your lord! using my own letters! Out on ye!” “Exactly!” returned Roha, unabashed. “The cruisers have therefore been sent along this coast, even to this paltry den of fish-fags and wreckers, to cut off your flight by water!’ “While,” continued the second noble traitor, “the Captain-general sends a force overland to prevent a flight through the country.” The position looked hopeless; and the duchess herself lost her florid hue. On the other hand, fired by this first opportunity which the Chained Tiger of Philip IV. had enjoyed to show his mettle, her lord glowed with long- penned up rage. In a voice of thunder again he re- joiced: “Sa, ha! sirs! your treachery is manifest at last! Under a mask of fidelity, you have been fawning upon me these years!” “My lord!” and they audaciously clapped their hands to their swords. : As for the ex-captain turned monk, he fumbled for his beads, no doubt to pray for a heavenly interposition in this impending fight. ‘Do you draw on your highness, and not in his de- fence?” exclaimed the duchess, dashing down her fan, which, as she drew it, showed it was a sheath for a long, slender stiletto of Italian device—a not unique precau- tion when princesses, as we see, were not absolutely safe, CORNICE LOOOKS CO)