In Search of an Unknown Race — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

20 VAN. His four shipmates! Then at least, Tom, the negro, was not in the plot—for that it was a plot the conver- sation to which Van had just listened had already assured him. ‘You are lying,” he said with a coolness which sur- prised even himself. ‘‘If Captain Peterson is missing, you have murdered him and thrown his body over the side.” ‘‘ You'll have hard work to prove it,” returned Bates, as cool as ever. ‘Let me go on deck,” said Van, hoarsely. “Stand out of the way, you infernal scoundrel!” he fiercely ex. claimed, as the dwarfed sailor placed his muscular hand on the boy’s shoulder to stop him. ‘“You stop where you be!” said Smith. Scarcely had the words escaped his lips when Van, swinging himself free, planted a crushing blow between the sailor’s eyes, sending him headlong to the floor. Springing past Bates, who seemed rather amused than otherwise at his companion’s discomfiture, Van ran up the companionway, while Smith, breathing out fierce oaths of vengeance, picked himself up and rushed into the little lavatory to apply water to his bruised and bleeding nose. In a state of mind hardly to be described, the young officer glanced hastily about the deck. Captain Peter- sons familiar form was nowhere in sight, and a groan escaped Van's lips as the truth of the assertion he had uttered in the cabin forced itself upon his mind. The three other members of the gang of conspirators were laughing and talking loudly on the deck. They had routed out the steward, who, in a state of the most (EOMMIELOO_ KS. e