A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

4114 A SERVANT OF SATAN. - ed .S - ~" af . - - Pa * * avon PS ® ™ vd v ita Rage F a privates are to be found men who have held even colonels’ — commissions in the Prussian and Austrian Armies, while once prominent but now ruined noblemen, such as the two Counts E , of Berlin, and Prince R , of Vienna, are to be seen figuring as mess-sergeants, and even as orderlies of half-educated and coarse Dutch infantry officers. Indeed, there is scarcely a foreigner-in the Dutch Colonial Army who has not some sad or dark history attached to his name. Few of them ever return to their native land, for the climate of Java is deadly. It has been calculated that, of all the men who enlist, not more than thirty-five per cent. live through the whole period of their service. Of the 27,000 men who constitute the army, an average of at least 6,000 men are permanently on the sick list and hors de combat. ‘he name under which Frederick had been enrolled was Frederick Gavard, of Alsace, while his companion had de- scribed himself as Charles Renier, of Paris. During the next three years Frederick and his fellow fu- gitive endured all the hardships of a soldier’s life. Fred- erick had now learned how to control his former ungovern- able temper, and had-acquired the conviction that there is much more to be obtained by concealing one’s real senti- ments and by biding one’s time than by any headstrong act of violence. Although he kept his hands free from crime during this period, yet it must not for one moment be gathered therefrom that his moral character had undergone any improvement. On the contrary, he was a far more dangerous character now than he had ever been before. It was but the absence of a suitable opportunity for making a profitable cowp that prevented him from adding to his list of crimes. By dint of the most careful observance of the regulations, by his remarkable intelligence, and by the evidences which he displayed of having undergone a most careful military 2 (ele) (e(oy payicel exeKo) <3