Explore "Black Bartlemy's Treasure" by Jeffery Farnol on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Devil, ever zealous for the undoing of poor Humanity, surely findeth no readier ally than the blind and merciless Spirit of Mortified Pride. Thus I, minding the Lady Joan's scornful look and the sting of her soft-spoke words, fell to black and raging fury, and vowed that since rogue and galley-slave she had named me, rogue she should find me in very truth henceforward if I might but escape my perilous situation.
And now it was that Chance or Fate or the Devil sent me a means whereby I might put this desperate and most unworthy resolution into practice; for scarce had I uttered this vow when a key turned softly in the lock, the door opened and closed stealthily, and though I could not see (it being pitch-dark) I knew that someone stood within a yard of me, and all with scarce a sound and never a word. And when this silence had endured a while, I spoke sudden and harsh: