Spring-Heel'd Jack, The Terror of London — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

- ee a ee . i 7 _ c SPRING-HEEL'D JACK: THE TERROR OF LONDON. He was sure of tlie direction in which the body of the unfortunate girl would float, and as. the tide was running down it would be carried | towards the pool, and the long row of small craft which rode at anchor there. -. Ghostly indeed did the vessels look in that ‘dim light, with their dark hulls and bare masts, but Jack saw them not. His anxious gaze swept around the black sur- face of the water in search of her who had excited his pity. ‘ His eyes growing accustomed to the blackness he had little difficulty in making out small objects ‘at a considerable distance. _ The boats, moored to the wharfs, rising and falling withthe gentle undulations of the water, the buoy rocking to and fro by the action of the stream, or the shadow of any object onthe shore, he knew in an instant, and hence he was not deluded into the belief that either were the form of Ellen floating along to eternity. His cloak greatly impeded his action, and once or twice he essayed to release himself of it, but, unable to do so, he looked searchingly around, and kept himself almost in a stationary position in the water. “She cannot have floated far out from the bridge,” he muttered, “for I must have touched the water almost as soon as she did herself. Poor thing, I fear she has struck her head against an abutment and sank never to rise any more, or else her frail form has been driven beneath one of the barges, and if so there is little hope of saving her. By heaven! I feel myself being drawn forcibly towards them,” he added, striking out so as to place a sreater distance between himself and a couple of barges which lay moored opposite a wharf on the city side of the bridge, and against whose bows the waters broke and parted as they rushed on towards the sea. He had taken but a couple of strokes when a low, plaintive cry floated to his ears,and he turned as quickly as possible in the direction whence the sound had proceeded. There, close to one of the barges, he could perceive the head and arms, as they were moved wildly about, of a human being, and, despite the risk he knew he ran of being drawn under the flat bottom of the barges, he struck boldly out for the poor girl’s side. It required little exertion on his own part, for the strensth of the current, and the magnetic influence exercised upon it by the vessels, hurled him forward with great velocity. A quarter of a minute could not have elapsed ere he was alongside the object of his search, and as he frantically thrust forth his hand to seize one of her arms, which now alone appeared above the surface, it vanished from his gaze and grasp, and he was borne forward over the spot whence the limb had disappeared, close up under the bow of a barge. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, wud Jack could not be blamed, if for the moment now he forgot the poor girl, and thought only of his own danger. Another moment, and he must have been sucked down under the bottom of the vessel, had he not, by a supreme exertion, grasped at its side, and drawn himself up on to it—a task - oo _———_— - — @- - —— “wt rendered more easy from the fact that the barge was partially loaded, and hence lay deep in the water. With his legs dangling over the side, and his feet within a foot of the stream, he rested, and panted for breath for a few moments, taking ad- vantage of the time so occupied to search with his eyes for any indication of the whereabouts of Ellen, and to cut with his pen-kmife the silken cords that secured his cloak, and which had become knotted so tightly as to defy all attempts to undo them. This accomplished, he flung the garment from his shoulders into the barge, and standing up upon its very edge, shaded his eyes with his hand, as if to concentrate his vision, and peered down into the dark stream, while he strained every nerve to catch the faintest sound. Again that low cry—so low, that it might have been mistaken for the sighing of the wind, or the murmur of the water beneath him, broke upon the night air. This time it was as if it came from the other end of the barge. ‘* There—there!” cried Jack. ‘ She is out there. She has escaped the fate I had feared she met with. Yes! ’tis her—tis her!” He sped along the narrow side of the vessel, heedless of the danger he ran in the darkness of falling into one of the half-emptied rooms of the barge, and was within a few feet of its stern, when a sudden apparition rose up quickly before him, and caused him almost to fall backwards into the water. | It was the form of a tall, stout, rough-looking man, who seemed to have rose as if by magic from the deck, who now stood confronting him, but who, as Jack recovered from his sudden surprise, fell back trembling before him. ‘* The devil!” he shouted, in a husky tone. ‘“* Not a thief, but the devil !’’ In an instant Jack saw who and what the man was, and the cause of his sudden appear- ance, and now trembling agitation. He knew that he had to watch the barges and protect them from the thieving proclivities of certain gentlemen who had a penchant for ap- propriating. any little article not too heavy to carry away to their own use, and believing that he bad caught one of them on board the craft where he was lying in wait, had sprung forward with the intention of arresting him, but catching a glimpse of the hideous mask Jack wore, had found his courage desert him, imagining in the sudden shock he received, that he had confronted the devil. He was one of those rough-reared, powerful- built men, with a sort of brute courage, which would lead him to face anything human, but of that lgnorant, superstitious mind, that was ready to acknowledge on the instant the exist- ence of anything superhuman, not having the sense to imagine before he leaped to conclusions. The moment his eyes rested on Jack’s mask, he had come to the conclusion that he stood in the presence of a superhuman being, and a terror so sreat seized upon him, that he retreated hur- riedly towards the very edge of the stern of the barge. Jack saw the man’s danger, and stretched Eomiel ES —_ “a am JOO —-. 4 wwe Ee a .