The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 285: what you’re looking at

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

REVELATIONS OF THE MONSTER-MAN - 255 the den where I had been staying, and thus was I prompted to take my spade and conceal it as well as I could about my person. In like manner was I urged to a cutler’s shop, where I expended my last sixpence in the purchase of a pair of scissors. Oh, truly, Mr. Meagles, truly is all this the fearful narrative of impulsive madness the most horrible, the most diabolical! ”’ ‘Tt is indeed, my poor friend, it is indeed! ”’ exclaimed Meagles, who was fascinated by the appalling interest of a tale even as the bird is by the eye of the snake, — a horrible fascination whence the escape which would prove so welcome is impossible. : ‘‘ But let me hasten and bring my hideous story to a con- clusion,’”’ said Melmoth, with abruptness alike in voice and manner; ‘‘ for I myself am getting sick of it, as I am sure you must be. Well, then, I returned to the churchyard which I had visited in the morning; and Heaven knows how agoniz- ing were the thoughts, the instincts, and the impulses which waged their tremendous warfare within my soul. Talk of the roaring, raging, conflicting billows of a whirlpool, they - were naught to the battling fury of my sensations! Talk of the eddies of sand thrown up in whirling columns by the hurricane on Arabia’s desert, they were nothing in compari- son with my jarring inclinations! I would have given worlds to go back, but an indomitable power urged me on; I would have laid down my life to be able to turn and flee, but a destiny that knew not pity nor remorse compelled me to go forward. It seemed as if I had two minds, —the one wherein all the better feelings of my nature had con- centrated themselves; the other forming the focus of all the influences of hell.” | ‘* And the latter triumphed? ” said Meagles, in a voice that was low and subdued with mingled suspense and consterna- tion. ‘Yes, hell triumphed!’ returned Melmoth, a ghastly expression sweeping over his countenance. “I entered the churchyard, though recoiling from the hideous and varied dangers which menaced me. For I knew that the spring-guns were charged ready to vomit forth death or inflict disabling wounds, and that the steel traps were yawn- ing in all directions like serpents with their mouths open in the long damp grass. But hell which gave me its instincts (COMMU Doo SS} m