A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

A SERVANT OF SATAN, | | 145 CHAPTER XVI. LANDING AT SAN FRANCISCO, On the following evening at sunset, the deck of the steamer presented a most impressive appearance. All the officers and passengers of the ship were assembled around the corpse of poor Nina Van der Beck, over which the captain was reading the burial service. ‘’he evening was gloomy and threatening, and the dark-green waves were beginning to be capped withfoam. Overhead there was a ~ glaring red sky, of the fierce, angry color of blood which tinged the water around the ship a lurid crimson. Away in the west the sun, like a gigantic ball of fire, was sinking behind a bank of ominous-looking clouds, and from time to time a passirig shadow shivered on the troubled waters like a streak of purple. Several huge albatross were un- ceasingly circling around the vessel with broad expanded wings, and their discordant cries added to the weird fantasy of the scene. The engines had been stopped, and the silence was only broken by the slashing of the waves against the ship’s side and the melancholy moaning of the wind through the rigging, which was so strong as to sometimes almost drown the voice of the commander as he proceeded with the service. On the deck at his feet lay a long, narrow object, soned up in acanvascover. An Austrian flag had been thrown partly over it, so as to conceal as much as possible the rigid outline of the corpse which produced so dismal an impres- sion in its shroud of sail-cloth, to which two heavy ¢ cannon- balls had been attached. Frederick was leaning against the bulwark, close to the Eomicbooks co ee)