A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

A SERVANT OF SATAN, 141 _ CHAPTER XV. DEAD. It was a magnificent, sunshiny morning when the great paddle-wheel steamer of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany raised its anchor and started forth on its twenty-three days’ journey to San Francisco. As it rounded the point it passed almost within a stone's throw of the inward-bound French mail-boat from Hong-Kong. Mme. Van der Beck, who, lying back in a deck chair, had been gazing languidly at the French vessel through a pair of opera- glasses, suddenly raised herself in her chair, and, uttering a piercing shriek, fell back in a dead faint. Quickly turn- ing his gaze in the direction of the passing ship Frederick was able, even without the assistance of the glasses, to re- cognize in one of the passengers on the hurricane deck Nina’s husband, Mr. Van der Beck. A moment later the French vessel rounded into the bay and passed out of sight, while the American mail steamer proceeded out to sea. Nina was borne down to her cabin, and along time elapsed before she could be restored to con- sciousness. From that time forth she sank day by day. The glimpse which she had caught of her bitterly wronged husband had proved a final and crushing blow, and although her love for Frederick never wavered, yet it was easy to perceive that her heart was filled with remorse at the fatal step which she had taken in eloping with him from Batavia. One evening some ten days after their departure from Japan, Mme. Van der Beck, who was feeling more op- pressed and restless than usual, insisted on being carried up | Comichbooks. (0), 7) >