D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 302: what you’re looking at

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

The Marplot. 283 through our house! Do you not know me? The Lady of Floriador % “But you?” ~ ar “Iam no more what I was. My brother has persuaded me of my wrong course; besides, no one could bring as redemption so good a price as the duke’s head! I am going to fetch my brother from the Corregidor’s with his regiment! Ath, he will be a duke, and you all made men!” | : Joyously she passed through them and left by the outer oor. ae They stared at one another as though a comet had streamed among them. “The count was in collusion with the Mariandas,” said one. “Well, gentlemen,” said another, an old man, “I owed my marquisate to Don Juan’s interest at Madrid. I b, would rather not huddle him away with my own hands! 3) If my varlets can be of any use “And I, Count d’Exilis, pestered with numerous syco- phants, I never asked this Braganza for an office but he found the letters-patent. It would not look well for me to take him by the sleeve and hand him over to the butchers ij “And J,” said a third, “when I was in Toledo Castle, in tthe Inquisition’s grip, for having, unwittingly, heret- ical tomes in my library—which, thank God! I could not read !—he obtained my liberation, when, too, the fire was blazing on the plaza for me! Now, it is not for me to call the Spanish in to apprehend him!’ “T see,” said still another, ironically, but as backward as any of them, “none of us itch to be the actual giver of the betraying kiss. Come,” looking out of a little win- dow commanding a peep of the garden gateway, open on the side street, “why not employ that citizen soldier yon- der, who accompanied us from the gates to make sure that our horses ‘would be delivered to the Spanish Com- mander of Horse? A captain of militia arresting our sworn liege will not compromise us as would our squires, lackeys, or, above all, ourselves.” “Viazma is right! but yet, a trainband sergeant to ar- rest a duke, a prince, all but a king!” EORMIE NOOLKS.(E)