A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

~~ OT 2 eee = ~ @ eae ‘'S> ‘ F rh mete ~~ *, d (*-, RA: A SERVANT OF SATAN. Barquillo—and on our arrival there, assisted the door porter and some of the other servants to carry him up stairs to a very handsome suite of apartments on the second floor. On taking my departure, he overwhelmed me with thanks for what he was pleased to call my kindness, and entreated me to do him the favor of calling, handing me at the same time a card bearing the name of Comte Linska de Castillon. A couple of days later. happening to be in the neighbor- — hood of the Calle del Barquillo, I dropped in to see how he was getting on. He received me with the greatest cor- diality, and so interesting was his conversation that it was quite dark before I left the house. It turned out that he, too, had been present at the execution of the wretched Otero, and that he was on his way home when his horses became frightened and bolted.- After discussing all the horrible details of the death of the regicide, the conversa- tion took the direction of capital punishment in foreign countries—a theme about which he displayed the most wonderful knowledge. From the graphic manner in which he described the strange tortures and cruel methods of punishment practiced at the courts of the native princes in India and China, it was evident that he was speaking of scenes which he had witnessed, and not from mere hearsay. He seemed equally well acquainted with the terrors of lynch law in the frontier territories of the United States, and with the military exe- cutions of spies and deserters in warfare. In short, it be- _ came clear to me that he was a great traveler, and that he was as well acquainted with America and Asia as he was with the ins and outs of almost every capitalin Europe. His French, his Spanish, his German, and his English, were all equally without a trace of foreign accent. His manners were perfect, and displayed unmistakable signs of birth — and breeding. Although not above the ordinary stature, he was a man of very compact and muscular build. Dressed comicbooks. €o