Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Avery Glibun: Or, Between Two Fires; A Romance
Hrs face was all in rags, with a huge and tangled red beard, and, as he bent over me, holding the dingy little jail of a lantern aloft in his right hand, I noticed that his deep-set eyes glistened in the bleared light like window-glass at night.
Yes! There he was, just as my most horrible and delightful story-book had been so particular to describe him! That very same obese and hairy Dwarf, who only needed the true love of the adorable Princess of China to make short work of his evil enchantment and restore to him his original matchless legs and surprising feathers. In a vague and shadowy way I took exception to the lantern, which seemed something of an innovation; but, then, it might be one of those magic lanterns I had heard mentioned. Yes, it was the Dwarf at last, and no mistake. Indeed, I had commenced to speculate upon the propriety of asking him some polite question about the Princess of China, whom I believed to be celestially fascinating in a pink velvet dress and a perfect dog-collar of a gold crown; when a sudden and pungent taste in my mouth caused me to open my eyes more widely, and, in an instant, I compre hended that the figure at my bedside was not the Dwarf.
Out went my dream under a curdling ?ash of terror, and, with a shrill scream, I attempted to start up.
Quick as thought the creature's left hand was upon my mouth and held me fast to the rickety cot.
Hold your noise, you brat! He growled hoarsely; and inclined his head still lower, as though to listen.
Terrified as I was, I could but listen, too, in a petrified, helpless way; and I heard a dreary sort of thud! Thud! Accompanied by an intermittent splashing sound, apparently coming from some place beneath us.
All right! Muttered the man, at last, nodding at something in the air, and set ting down the lantern just beyond me on the cot; but don't try that again, my little man, or I'll have to give you to the booboos.
Notwithstanding the threat, there was something so roughly kind in his tones, and in his manner of removing the hand from my lips to my hair, that the first fear of him left me, though the terrors of a strange place still made my poor little heart throb violently.
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