The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XIII THE DUNGEON THE dungeon in which Sir Richard Stamford and the commercial traveller were confined was in reality a large vaulted cellar. The walls and root were of massive masonry; the floor consisted of the damp, unpaved ground. A quantity of straw was spread in one corner to form the baronet’s couch; and this had not been changed during the few days that he had been an inmate of the place. Upon that sorry bed the prisoners snatched two or three hours’ repose, after Sir Richard had told his lamentable tale. They slept through sheer exhaustion, — a sleep that was rather the prostration of all the physical and mental powers, than the slumber which has a refreshing influence with it and imparts new vigour alike to body and mind when the eyes open again. Yes, they slept the heavy and leaden sleep which misery oiten knows; and when they awoke again, it was not to the cheering beams of the morning sun nor to the whisper- ing of the breeze rustling through the defoliated boughs of winter, but to the intense darkness of their cell, and to the din of the falling chain and receding bolts outside the door. And that massive door swung around upon its hinges, and then the faintest, faintest gleaming ot light, shed from tne staircase, penetrated glimmeringly into the dungeon, so partially and sickly, however, that it enabled not the pris- oners to catch a glimpse of each other’s countenance, but merely: showed them the form of a man at the en- trance. “ Well, how d’ye like your companion, Sir Richard? ” inquired the fellow, in a gruff velce, and with a free and easy tone; but it was not the Magsman, as Page had fancied at 7 419 % COMIC OOO SS co