The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

182 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. easily do, as the individual upon the staircase carried a lamp in his hand, as was palpable by the rays it flung before him. Her heart beat quickly, and she stood there with almost sup- pressed breath to listen and to observe. It was evident that, from some reason or another, the indi- vidual who so soon would be before her eyes, was most fearful of awakening attention to his movements, or he would not have adopted so careful a mode of getting down-stairs. It seemed as if he were a minute before he would venture to place his foot upon one of the steps, and then it was only by a subdued creaking of it that Mabel could be sure that he was coming. Now he was close at hand. Now she saw his arm. He car- ried the candle in his Jeft hand, and was shading it with his right, Such an arrangement was calculated to throw a strong light upon his face, and it did so. Mabel with difficulty prevented herself from uttering an exclamation of affright; for in that face she at once recognized tne too well-known and repulsive feat- ures of the mendicant. He passed on, too ‘intent upon his own footsteps and upon shielding the light from anv blasts of wind, to observe that a door was partially open, as Mabel’s was. And it was well that he did so, for had he paused and chosen to be inquisitive, he must have seen her, as the sudden terror and surprise of seeing him there for the moment freze up her faculties, and she could not move from the spot on which she stood. That he had escaped from the prison she was aware, because the officer on his last visit had said as much; but that he should be there in the very house where she had found an asylum—not a very desirable one, certainly, but still if was one—surpassed all belief. But she could not be mistaken. She, of all persons, could not for one moment doubt the identity of that man upon whom she had too often looked with undisguised aversion and terror. His every feature was impressed indelibly upon her memory. There could be no possibilitv of a mistake. It was that fearful man— that man who had wrested her from all she held dear on earth, and who had plunged her in such a sea of terrors and difficulties as had now for some time surrounded her. He passed on. The light which he carried slowly faded away, and all upov the staircase was darkness again. Then Mabel staggered back till she came to a chair, upon which she sat, with sigh that told of the agony of apprehension that had come over er. Then arose the deeply interesting question of what should she do contingent upon this discovery. : ‘* Why is he here,” she asked herself, ‘‘ but to do me some injury? By some means he has found out the fact of my resi- dence here, and yet has power, he fancies, to harm me. Oh, Heaven! protect me against that dreadful man and all his fear- ful machinations; for that he is now contriving something comicbooks. com