The Lights o' Gotham; or, The Gilded Villain — page 3: what you’re looking at

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

- ™~ oe Pe eee Ts So ah aS i ° i. 4” » - —S. t ~~ ya ~~+ yA oor Pes a. oe Oe ‘.) a> n, ae a) “ Yer > iad = ah We « VRS ~ z — 3 ¥ WEE * ~ —— ver" af rt HR ta a iy Sy “ & = - é - * MEN gee eee . ~ mat eer * a tary a niall n v eee i » Ee” A p aes "* » a a owt a << ea nes - ee i. is ‘ aa 7 - > +, <. ‘* Hush-a-by baby.” ~ It was his wife’s voice. The child had awoke, and she was soothing it to sleep again. He heard its infantile cry, and then it was drowned in another, longer, more violent fit of coughing which seized his wife. These two sounds might have made another pause, but they only hurried him on in his dread de- sign. His child’s cry, in his ears, was the universal cry of the starving poor, his wife’s cough the last rattle in the throat of dying misery; he wanted to escape from bvth, and the way was around his neck. ‘‘ Heaven proteet them and forgive me!’ he muttered, as he balanced himself for a moment on the railing previous to mak- ing the awful fatal drop. At this instant the garret door, opposite the one in which his wife and child were lying, opened, and a torn and tattered tramp staggered out in a half-drunken condition. Though scarcely older than Baxter, hard and constant drinking had made a perfect wreck of him. In that neighborhood he was known as Tom, the toper, and that was all that people knew or cared to know about him. Baxter saw him coming, and sought to drop and put an end to himself before he could be interfered with. But it was too late. Tom staggered heavily against him and clutched him by the leg which was hanging over the railing. ‘*Hello!” he hiccoughed, ‘‘ what the duse are you up to?” ‘‘Let me go,” exclaimed Baxter, energetically, but in a low tone, lest his wife should hear him. He struggled to release the drunkard’s hold on him, but the latter clung tenaciously to him. ‘‘No, yer don’t,” continued the toper; ‘‘what yer astride of the railin’ for? An’ what’s this rope a-doin’ around yer neck. Yer want ter take a drop, do yer?”’ en em —— While thus talking, the tramp had been fumbling with one hand in his pocket, and he now drew forth an open clasp-knife, with one cut of which he severed the rope. ‘*Can’t you let me commit suicide if I want to?” ill-humor- edly said Baxter. ‘If you had the troubles [ had, you'd wish to die, too.” Tom steadied himself, and, in a more sober tone, replied: ‘“D’ you tlank you're the only one’s got trouble in this world? I've had mine, too. It was all abouta girl. She went back on me, and then I took to drink. I’ve had thoughts of suicide, too; but I read a paragraph in a paper about it. It said that a sui- cide was a self-murderer, a coward who was afraid to live, a thief who robbed himself; that the vilest criminal had more pluck, and was worthy of more esteem than he, and so forth; I don’t remember the whole of it now. No matter; that settled me. I determined ter show ’em I was brave enough ter live, and a jolly life I’m leadin’, sleepin’ all day, an’ drunk all night. If the world's satisfied, Lam. That’s my philosophy, an’ I guess you'll adopt it, too. I don’t think you'll put your neck in a noose again. I’m off. Ta, ta, my boy!” With a hoarse laugh he staggered off, and Baxter listened un- til he heard his heavy, uncertain steps die away on the floor below. Then the would-be suicide, getting off the railing, took off the noose from his neck and flung it in a corner. The wild, maniacal light disappeared from his eyes, and was replaced by a dangerous glitter. ‘* The vilest criminal is more worthy of esteem than the sui- cide,” he muttered between his clenched teeth. ‘* The paper says so. It isthe verdict of society. Let it be so. The world has raised its hand against me, and having driven me to the point of suicide, mocks me and calls me a coward. I will show the world I am no coward. Henceforth my hand is raised against the world, and it alone is to blame for making me a monster.” With these words he pushed his hat down over his eyes, and, descending the staircase, left the house. THE LOG CABIN LIBRARY. ~++-——> (ee eee a See OO The dying woman, left alone on her pallet of straw, waited for her husband’s return. She had heard a faint sound of a struggle, and a cOnfused murmur of voices, but she had not been able to distinguish them through the closed door. The hours passed on as she lay there, with her now sleeping child on her breast. She heard the bell sound the intervals of time, and it seemed to her that it was the church-bell calling her to her final home. She vaguely wondered why her husband did not come back, if he would bring the doctor, and what the latter would say. But it was all far off and indistinct, as if it concerned some one else, and not her. Her child, too, seemed to be drifting away from her embrace, and twice or thrice she had to arouse herself with an effort to assure herself that it was in her arms. What she was most sensible of was a feeling of warmth and re- pose, and absence of the hunger which had been gnawing at ier stomach. The garret, too, seemed to be widening and spreading, until it apparently inclosed the whole earth; while the dingy rafters strangely faded away into the clear blue sky. She felt a buoyancy of body as well as spirit, as if angel hands were supporting her and bearing her up aloft. How long she remained in this waking trance she did not know. She suddenly became conscious of the fact that her husband was in the room. He was just lighting a candle, and as the first flickering flames fell on his face she noticed that it was ghastly pale, while a strange, uncanny light glittered in his eyes. She laid aside her sleeping child, and, feebly raising herself on her elbow, exclaimed: ‘*You have come back, John?” ‘‘ Yes, Emily,”’ he replied, in tones of triumph;.‘‘and see what I have brought. That which will buy you health again, bread and clothing for our child, shelter, and ease, and com- fort, for us. Gold! gold! gold!” He thrust his hands in bis pockets as he spoke, and drew ont a whole handful of the glittering coins, which he threw with reckless profusion at his wife’s feet on the bed. She uttered a shriek which rang through the house. Then, with a sudden, new-born energy, she rose up. ‘*Gold!” she screamed. ‘‘/¢ is stuined with blood!” With the last words she fell back silent and motionless for- ever. CHAPTER IL. TEMPTATION AND CRIME. Yes, the gold which John Baxter had brought home was stained with blood. To discover how it had become so we must go back a few hours to the time when, having been baffled in his attempt to commit suicide, he had rushed from the abode of misery with the sudden determination to wreak his vengeance for the wrongs which he fancied the world had inflicted on him, in a word, to become a moral monstrosity. With a hurried gait he rushed along the street, thence through the City Hall Park to Broadway, and along that now deserted thoroughfare until he reached Wall street. Why he thus directed his footsteps he did not know. He had a vague, fantastic idea in his mind that, as this was the center of the financial interests of the city, he would in some way be able to get hold of some of the millions of gold there stored away. How he was to accomplish this, how to break through the bolts and bars, the stone and iron, which jealously guarded the glittering treasures, he did not think of. Like a wild animal, which has tasted blood, and rushes blindly forward in its search for more, so was he impelled by a sort of blood-thirsty instinot for gold. As he passedthe: Sub-Treasury, he heard a faint, indistinct 7 -_ : a , a 4S, - > > bh oe x, A AY, 0 OA eee Dee A re ve oa t . > ALA “ . ° - 1 » . om ¢ - ex i ‘A b r4 > 7 ¥. 4" ae . fs : of v « 2 ~ ,* | Jah 4 ¥. % . 7 - <* : comicbooks.com