A Silver Brand — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

F A SILVER BRAND, 251 von Schubert and Lady Theresa. I suspect he himself would almost be ready to help us. Oh, that I might ob- tain speech with some of them!” —__ | CHAPTER XXV., | JOY AND HOPE. It seemed an impossible thing, but so shrewdly had Jack Robinson managed the facilities in his power that while all the simple people of the fishermen’s island, and a trained police force on the mainland were searching vig- orously for the missing maidens, there they were safely caged in very. sight of the whole of them for three weeks. The island rock in the surf was difficult of access, and the old light-house cottage had an-uncanny reputation, so that few people were likely to brave the peril and dis- comfvrt for simple curiosity’s sake. But neither of these causes would have deterred White from close and con- tinued scrutiny had his suspicion only been aroused, and directed thither. All hands, however, united with the first expressed belief of Nat, that the stranger, who had visited the island under pretense of securing a collection of birds from Nat, had understood the girl’s claims, and had taken her away, with or without the connivance of Jack | Robinson. The continued absence of the two men con- firmed this belief, and close and vigilant watch was kept over all movements in the direction of ocean steamers and in the adjacent towns, rather than upon the immediate vicinity. White and two of his neighbors had made the visit to the cottage, instigated thereto by the very smoke Stephano had hoped might ‘attract notice. They had found nothing and seen nothing which had a suspicious look. That the house was furnished in its rude fashion they had known before; that occasionally some bold hunter, or its adven- turous owner, paid it a visit they also knew; and having made sure, as they believed, by knocking and calling and reconnoitering on all: sides, that the missing ones were not there, they returned home none the wiser and much wetter, for their boat upset twice before they were out of the surf, and thus they gave no more thought to the place. Nat still lay ill and helpless, and Penelope Foss tended him with the unwearied devotion of a wife or sister, added to some deeper, reverential sentiment which those who looked 1 in upon her hardly understood, (Efe) comicbooks