D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER VII. A NEW BIDDER. Before it came on dark, it was necessary to arrange for the long night. As the fire had been lit and was brightly burning, and a supply of fuel was at hand, that trouble was removed. But, wary and suspicious, first of all, he took up a brand, shook off the superfluous sparks for fear of fire, and, with many misgivings, climbed the stairs to explore the loft which had puzzled him. He made a more thorough search than his pred- ecessor, but returned satisfied that mischief would not fall on him, unless the whole cliff gave way under the two horses which he heard over his head. Returning, he was going down into the cellar; but, at the sight of a profound and unfathomable darkness, to which his light was mockery, he contented himself with a simpleton’s test. He called out, “Is there any one there?” and as no answer came, tried to believe that it was untenanted. The brand scorching his hand, he searched about and found. in a box of priceless cedar wood, a bundle of such large tallow candles as the Catalonian lead miner uses, hanging up by rope-yarn wicks, like so many gallow’s birds. He lighted one and put it on the table where his seat commanded a view of the doorhole. Completely ignoring his mule—the act of one not ac- customed to riding, perhaps, rather than inhumanity, although that is a characteristic of the Peninsulars, he began to read and check a handbook of accounts. Spite of his apparel and general aspect, so mean and sordid, he was at home among these figures, in four or five to a row, and involving startling amounts, even if ex- pressed in frances, pistareens or milreis. His fine features exposed the absorption and relish of a money-spinner, doubled by an arithmetician. At dark he laid aside the manual to take up the fish, broiled finely on the glowing coals. With bread, hard | GoOmicdookssco im