The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 329: what you’re looking at

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

298 THE COURT OF LONDON said the third corpse, 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 through the balls, and eat holes down into the depths of the sockets. And thou shalt experience 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 dreadful as his com- panions’, ‘‘ when thou shalt recover the power of motion and of speech, that thou mayst 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 midnight; 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 afiright thee now.” Then the band of unearthly shapes all extended their hands and pointed their fingers simultaneously toward 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, gradually, oradually, they advance toward 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 her 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 dreadful shapes drew nearer and nearer, with their extended arms and their steady corpse- like stare, until at length they placed their cold hands upon Gomicbdoc cS (E(0)