The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 400: what you’re looking at

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

aD CD a — THE MYSTER gs. have & sensatiun and a feeling that will cause thee $0 experience all its dreadful gloom. Yes—and thon shalt fee} too that thou art imprisoned in a narrow coffin: thou shalt know the stifling, suffo- cating oppressiveness of that narrow home. Thos shalt long to breathe—thou shalt yearn to throw off that sense of choking and strangulation which wil] feel like a tremendous stone upon your breast and like pieces of lead upon your month and nostrils: thou wilt concentrate all thine energies in the endeavour to put forth one long, deep res- piration—and thou wilt not be able !” “ No—and thou wilt feel the worms creeping over thee,” said the third corpee, taking up the terrific story : and its pale blue eyes looked cold as marble and its breath was laden with the ice-chill of Labrador, mingling with the mouldy rawness of the grave. “The worms shall creep over thee, I say—and thou wilt lie stiff and stark in thy coffin, powerless to throw them off. The relief that is to be found even in the recoil of a shudder will be denied thee. But there shalt thou lie, while the worms will fasten upon thine eyes—force their way throogh the ballsa—and eat holes down into the depths of the sockets. And thou shalt expe- rience all the hideous sensations attendant upon their slow and slimy movements, as they creep in and creep out ;—and thou shalt long to vent thine agony and thine horror in a scream—but the seal of Death’s silence will be upon thy lips !” “Save at midnight,” spoke the fourth corpse, whose stony gaze and chilling breath were as dreadfal as his companions’: “ when thou shalt re- cover the power of motion and of speech, that thou may’st rise from thy grave and give to others that welcome which we are come to bestow upon thee. Yes—thou shalt form one of the tribe of troubled spirits and spectral shapes that enhance the horror of a Newgate miduight : thy grave shall open and thou shalt come forth from thy coffin and from thine earthy solitude, to render the hours of darkness hideous and appalling! To thee shall this dread privilege be accorded as well as to us ;— and when thou art no more a denizen of the world of the living, thou wilt revisit this very cell in thy shroud and thy spectral terrors, to affright each doomed inmate in thy turn even as we are here to afright thee now!” Then the band of unearthly shapes all extended their hands and pointed their fingers simultaneously towards the milliner; and their ghastly hollow eyes, | leaden and dull with the stony stillness of death, were fixed upon her in a way that made her flesh creep upon her bones. And slowly, slowly—gra- dually, gradually, they advance towards her,— while she, quivering at her very centre and with a feeling as if a block of ice lay upon her heart, had no power to rise from ber seat nor to recoil a hair’s breadth from the appalling presence. She shrank as it were within herself—her very soul seemed sinking into a tremendous chasm ;—while the dread- ful shapes drew nearer and nearer, with their ex- tended arms and their steady corpse-like stare,— until at length they placed their cold hands upon the shoulders of the miserable women. Then, as she felt the sanguine current of life stagnating beneath the touch of those hands so marble cold, a hollow moan escaped her lips;—and this break- ing of a long and stupendous silence on her part, appeared to be the signal for a new phase ip a a a a a a ec a ~~— @ o@e@ewPe oe the wild and horrible drama. For now the fearfal | shapes suddenly seemed to become animated with a lurid fire that firet spread over them as it were with a bronzing effect, and then increased in power 80 as to give them the appearance of transparency, —until the glow heightened to an intenseness which produced an effect as if the spectral forms were moving in the midst of a tremendous furnace. Thus, as horror succeeded upon horror, the brain of the milliner was shattered with the recurring paroxysms —her very soul was riven by the wildest tortures —and acry, between a shriek and a yell, thrilled from her ashy lips. The spell of her waking dream was dissolved ina moment: the ghastly phantasmagorian train vanished quickly as the eye can wink ;—and once again w..s the milliner entombed in the darkness of utter night and in the silence of the grave ! For nearly a minute did she sit motionless while her ideas re-settled themselves in her brain: the stagnation of the blood gave way—the sanguine tide flowed languidly for a few moments, and then faster :—but the tide was tarned—and the muscles algo regained full play. She started up—she swept her open palms athwart her forehead upon which the perspiration stood in large drops ;—and then, with a sudden half-pace forward, she extended her arms wildly, murmuring in a hurried, hoarse tone and with broken accents, “Twas a delusion —a mere delusion—-but how horrible !” And then she sank back upon the seat whence she bad risen; and her arms fell languid and dead by her sides—and once more was she struck by the stupor of a tremendous consternation and an in- effable dismay. Her very soul was crushed as with the weight of all the human woes that had gathered and concentrated for centuries and centuries :—-and thus for a few minutes did she remain in the utter absorption and annihilation of blank despair. But all in a moment a pang shot through her heart and a feeling of horror traversed her brain :—and as a host of vivid memories swept over her spirit, conjuring up all her former enjoy- ments and contrasting them with her present agonies, the thought of her position goaded her almost to madness. “ Wretch, wretch that Iam!” she murmared to herself, in sharp and impatient accents, as she beat the bosom that palpitated with voluptuous feelings no more: “what a fearfal turn have I given to the current of my existence! The other day I was rich, happy, and cradledin luxury: now 1 am the inmate of a dungeon-cell. Though ful) of health and vigour, the hand of death lies cold upon my shoulder! My God! my God! what have I done? into what an abyss of horrors havc I plunged myself! Oh! is there no retreat ?—is there no retraciog the path of life fora few weeks —only afew weeks? Is it possible that I am in Newgate—that I shall be tried—that I shal] hang to the gibbet? Oram I under the influence of a horrible dream—a fearful nightmare? Let me see,” she continued more slowly: and as she sate in the depth of the impenetrable darkness of her dungeon, she placed her elbows upon her knees and rested her face upon her hands as she endeavoured to make her mental vision penetrate through the cloudiness and perplexity of her brain. “Let me see,” she repeatud, in a tone of measured precision, as if she sought to establish her points one by one a ne anes CONNEC OOO SS