The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 298: what you’re looking at

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

264 THE COURT OF LONDON over, had he not fallen from his chair as if suddenly struck by lightning, and had not she seen his corpselike countenance fixed rigidly in death, ere the lamp had been so mysteriously extinguished? Then, holy God! was it possible that new life had been infused into the dead man? Had the terrible anticipation of the milliner been signally and awfully fulfilled, and was the corpse endowed with the motion, the power, and the will either to harm or to affright her? Yes, all this was possible, as possible, she felt assured, as that she herself could be thus invisibly enchained and thus stretched motionless and powerless on the carpet by some miraculous and super- human spell. But while these thoughts were whirling through her brain, the rustling sound, that awful indication of the movement of the dead, was approaching nearer and nearer. Had it been a serpent winding its way toward her, and for- cing upon her active imagination all the horrors of its undu- lating coils and slimy touch, the effect would not have been half so appalling as was this preternatural, gradient, yet steady and persevering progress of a corpse through the black darkness which filled the chamber. Fearful as was the consternation which now sat upon the soul of Mrs. Brace, and harrowed as her feelings were, she nevertheless had clearness and vigour of perception sufficient to mark every characteristic, no matter how trivial, of the astounding incident that was now taking place. Thus, her ear becoming accustomed to the rustling sound, she was enabled to form a conjecture of the precise nature of the motion which the body must be undergoing in order to produce that exact noise; and she came to the conclusion that the corpse was being moved, or was moving itself, whichever it might be, flat along the carpet upon its back. For five minutes did this awful portion of the supernatural drama last, five mortal minutes, each appearing to be a century, and each to contain the essence of whole ages of excruciating torture. At length the wretched woman became aware that the corpse was close beside her; and yet not a hair’s breadth could she recoil from the coming con- tact, not the distance of a pin’s point could she move a limb away. The natural impulse of an agonizing horror was to contract her entire form even within herself, as it (C(O) AG 6)(0)(©) S co im