A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

106 A SERVANT OF SATAN. hands of the ‘‘ Canaks,” as the ferocious natives of New Caledonia are called. The ‘‘Canaks” before deciding as to what to do with their prisoners would probably hesitate, influenced on the one hand by their appetite for human flesh and on the other by their greed for the handsome re- ward offered by the Government for the capture, either alive or dead, of runaway convicts. For many days Frederick and his two companions wan- dered through almost impenetrable forests. They were frightened by every sound; by every rustle of a leaf, and were dependent for food on the berries, fruits, and roots, — which they devoured with some apprehension, afraid lest they. should contain some unknown and deadly poison. Kverywhere around them they felt that death was hovering. Lhe dense foliage of the trees completely hid the sky and surrounded them with deep shadows, which appeared full — of horror and mystery. Large birds flew off as they ad- vanced, with a startling flutter ‘of their heavy wings, and their only resting-place at night was among the branches of some lofty tree. Frequently they had to wade through pestilential swamps, in which masses of poisonous snakes. and other loathsome reptiles squirmed and raised their hiss- ing heads against the intruders. Once they were almost drowned in a deep lake of liquid mud which was so over- grown with luxuriant grasses and mosses that ~ had mis- taken it for terra firma. At length, on the twelfth day after their escape, they reached, shortly after nightfall, a small coast-guard station. The night was very dark and a heavy tropical rain was falling. A little after midnight the three men, who had re- mained hidden until then among the rocks, made their way down the little creek, where the open boat used by the coast guards lay at anchor. Gliding noiselessly into the water, they swam out to where the tiny craft was rising and os -_—_ —— ‘ ~e aa | hd eve P a e ested -* . or -~ e wt ~s - a A 4 . = - ~ “7 nN a * > . » a ‘ = oar fa b , wm... am %, + Fe é , ‘a Oe Fe ch a —_ PA : A ~y ; aa 4, _" ~ a a eS ee se ee wee BO ee ee en ee Oe ae ee ore ie F* 5 €, be 16 eet Fe ag ee OOP se - ry a ali Arne PF La? Arita Me Gcomicbooks co nm >,