The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 352: what you’re looking at

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

Quip quae wens Eee THE MYSTERIES OF THR COURT. 333 denly gifted with the power to cast off the spell of the trance, fling her arms around his neck, weep upon his breast, and prove that she was alive! That was a moiment—a single moment of beatific feeling for the unfortunate Ariadne: but the darkest, deep- est, blackest despair suddenly seized upgn her soul as she felt herself still tied down to that couch—still en- chained in motionless rigidity—still cold and lifeless as marble in body, though with a miad that was every instant flaining up with the accumulated vio- lence of a thousand volcanos! Then she felt the tear-drop upon her cheek. Heavens! it seemed to sink down into her very heart. Oh! that tear!—that tear! it was a pledge of love——Good God! what mockery for her to dream of such bliss as that which is concentrated In the word love! Deeper — yes, deeper, deeper down into the | lowest abyss of despair was she plunged, as all hope abandoned her. Then she felt the tear wiped away feu her face: then the kiss was imprinted upvo her brow;—and then there were souuds of hurried retreating steps—and the door closed again—and she was once orore alone. Yes: and Once more did she relapse into that stupor which gave her mental energies ths means and the lei- eure to repose, and regain their strength ia order to put forth their excruciating vitality again ! When she next awoke she became aware that there was a candle ora lamp fiathe room. Through her closed eyelids could she distinguish where it was; and then she heard several heavy feet moving aboat the chamber, though with an evident endea- vour that their tread shonid de as light as possible. A horrible suspicion sprang up iu the pvor girl's mind; aod it was alinost immediately confirmed by other sounds which struck upon her ears. These sounds were those of wood coming in con- tact with wood—one thing being lifted upon an, other: and then she knew that the undertaker's men were in the room piacing the shell upen the tressels | It instantaneously struck her that if ever the excruciation of her mental agonies should become sufficiently keen to inspire her physical being with new life, th:s must be the momeut. If the asphyxia should now prove stronger than that anguish which was torturing her soul to auch an extent as appa- rently to render it capable of inspiring marble itself with motion, then in that case did it seem as if all hope might be really abandoned. Sie felt her mind struggling within—or rather she inade it stroggie with all the violence of desperation to force it as it were to give vent to its feelings in any one of the sumerous eyidenc:s of life: such as a shudder—a shriek—a stretching forth of the arms—a tarning of the head—an opesing of the eyelid .—or even a quivering of the lips. But no: nothing of all this evuld she accomplish. Her mind was imprisoned in a form rigid and imprac- Vicable as marble; and i: seemed to her as if she herself were vainly struggling for emancipatiun from the iateriar of a stone sepulchre iu which, Hke a Roman vestal of ancient times, she was walled up! But we cannot descrihe the full horror of her thoughts on this head: we must leave the reader mach to imagine and depict unto himself. For now the momeat—the dread moment had come when Ariadne was to be placed inthe shell. It was frum habit that the undertaker and his men trod as gently as possible in the room — from habit that they spoke io under-tcnes suited to the chamber of death—from habit that they laid their hands upon her gently and delicately. It wag habit all: for in their nature they were ac wore susceptible of sympathy than other men. On the contrary—from being in the frequent companion- ship of the dead, they knew neither ave vor pity. Indeed, their feelihgs were much bluuted aud their hearts much brutalized by their avocation: aul if a proof of this were wanting, it might have been found in the fact that the housekeeper, knowing their predilection, at this moment entered the room with atray containing a bottle of spirits and several glasses. Thereupon the undertaker and his men turned away from the couch, and approached the toilette-table where the housekeeper deposited the tray. “Now, ma‘am, will you jine in” asked Mir Stimson, as he filled all the glasses round. “ Well, I'll just take a leeile drop, so as not t& seem unfriendly,” said the honsekeeper. “That's right, maam. Aod now,” continued Stimson, raising a brimming giass to his lips, “ here’s your wery good health, ma'am—aad here's his lordship’s health too—aud wishing us all good ‘luck :"— with which benediction the undertaker screwed up his eyes, as if to shut out the fume of the liquor as he tossed it dwn his throat, Having refreshed. themselves with a dram, the servitors of death retarned to the couoh, and once more resumed their hold upon Ariadne. Not the concentrated anguish of ten thousand racks—not the essence powerfully condeused of all the mast refined excruciations of the Inquisition—caa con- vey any adequate ides of the agony of agonies which the young girl now endured. All. such ideas as the coiling of fiery serpents around the form—of burning alive in candescent flames—-of tearing off the soilp and dropping boiling oil upon the brain laid bare—of flaying alive and searing the excoriated flesh with red-hot iron—of passing red-hot needles through the eyes, allsuch ideas as these, we say, fell incomparably short of the illimitable agony endured by the poor girl as the undertaker and hia men lifted her from the bed and put her into the narrow shell. — This being done, the men retraced their way t the toilette-table, and regaled themselves with another dram. | “I never did see a corpse keep so fresh,” ob- served Stimson: “there’s no oozing out of the mouth—no discolouring under the cyes—not even any particular blueness of the nails. And thea, too, she felt as limp and supple aa if only in a fit.” “ Bat I shouldn't like to be only half as dead for all that,” said one of the men. “Poor thing,” he continued, with the mechanical utterance of the sympathetic ejaculation: “she'll be discoloured and blue enough ia a fee days—and she il get stark and stiff enough, too, before she’s put into her coffin and screwed dowa.” Screwed down! guud heavens, what dreadful words—overwhelming as a torrent, devouring as a conflagration, crushing as a thuoderbolt! Life appeared now to be really ebbing away from the statue-like fourm of Ariadoe Varian: and oh! how sho wi.bed that ahe might be really Jying—thas. COMME lOO© Ss