Henry C. Rowland

“ CHAPTER I. THE men look poisonous, but the girl is rather pretty," said Stephen Dallas.
"'Poisonous' is scarcely the word," answered Sir James—"unless you apply it to the big Jew in the same sense that it might refer to the hind leg of a mule. The girl is Austrian, I fancy, with perhaps a dash of Italian. She would be rather a beauty—when you got used to her." ”

“ Our blood is the purest in Europe. We are the direct descendants of the ancient Illyrians. We should be to-day an independent state if it were not for cowards like Emilio and"—she tossed her head—"Jew adventurers."
"Permit me to remind you of the fact," said Dallas severely, "that you, personally, would be paddling around the English Channel if it were not for Baron Rosenthal, who, although he cannot swim, embarked to your rescue in a leaky, open boat, with neither oars nor sail." ”

“ There were some women and children bathing, and a few people sitting here and there about the beach. Near by, a big fishing boat was hauled up, and a man was calking her seams. Dallas observed that he had stopped work and was watching the girl, who was swimming steadily seaward. Higher up on the beach were some other and larger boats, but the place was an open roadstead, with no inlet for miles, and there were no boats in the water.
"She is getting too far out," observed Sir James. "Believe I'll swim out and warn her. But you'd better tell her friends to call her back." ”

“ But it does not matter; there is lumber enough in the tub to float the lot of us until we are picked up." He leaped aboard, and Dallas, rather pale, and with lips compressed, followed him, and, picking up a bucket, began rapidly to bail.
"Come, lend a hand!" he snapped to the prince. "There is a pan in the stern."
But the prince took several backward steps up the beach. "Thank you," said he in a guttural voice, "but I am not such a fool as to go to sea in a boat like that."
"But you must!" cried the Jew. "There is the Lady Thalia."
The prince shrugged. "It is her own fault," said he ”

“ But he was one of those individuals of nervous temperament, who, while willing to take chances themselves, are nevertheless extremely disturbed at the sight of others exposed to danger. Moreover, he was himself an inlander, a poor swimmer, and one to whom deep water represented treachery and danger. ”

“ The young man ob- served how the huge deltoids bulged the shoulders of the Jew's serge coat, and presently the seams ripped under the strain. But the paddling went on with the unabating rhythm of a machine, nor was there any symptom of fatigue.
As they drew near to the swimmers, Dallas discovered, first to his relief, then to his irritation, that they were paddling along easily and comfortably, and that Sir James was making an effort at conversation. He looked at Rosenthal, who grinned.
"So!" said the Jew. "They seem to be quite comfortable." ”