D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

The Power of a Quill. 31 fire heat had sweated the tar, and, using this as a paste, pressed the paper on it so that it adhered beyond the possibility of the wind removing it. Pedro shook his head; as for the negress, she con- templated the writing like a witch’s spell. “May I live to be as fat as that cardinal who was called the Eighth Hill of Rome!” cried he, “but I shall not, then, read the inscription! May your visitor be a better clerk, or it will be thrown away upon him as well!” Thus indirectly appealed to, the writer read as follows, the same intelligence being conveyed in different lan- guages, but he spoke in Biscayan, which was not there at all in characters: “Caballero Luis de Gannarta awaits you on the last day of February.” “Oh, I address the honorable Knight of Gannarta,” ob- served the resigned host, apparently taxing his memory without avail. “Exactly, the finest old house in the Vale of Tempe?” “Anan?” queried the puzzled sailor. “The erudite have disputed as to its site. Every pa- triot thinks it is in his land, as it is the most blessed’ of spots on the map; but I, who am a Gascon, hold it to be in Gascony, and I will uphold it with my sword!’ “Oh, let it be in Gascony! So your honor is a Gas- con P”’ “A Black Gascon! But the Black Prince of Darkness is not so heavily tarred as he is painted in church crypts!” Pedro grinned. “Tt is certain that if he were courting an earthly princess, he would not apply to a painter-priest for his miniature !”’ “Come, come! you may not be a friend of the priest, but you need not be that to the devil!” ‘My lord of Gannarta, that person and his legions have not done me as much harm in forty years as the nobility, the law and the priesthood in forty days! There are liv- ing witnesses! Gannarta—I knew a master of the Bar- celona Galley of six hundred oars who——’” “A Gannarta never rowed in a galley, or commanded one!” COMMicaooks (C(O)