The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

- THE CRIME 15 away in a boat. Amongst these survivors was Chifin. The small stock of provisions they had managed to bring from the wreck was very soon exhausted, and for several days they were tossed about on the broad ocean, enduring all the horrible pangs of hunger and thirst. At length a whisper passed around amongst them, and they agreed to cast lots who should die to furnish food for the rest. The lot fell upon the boatswain, and he resigned himself to his fate. The dreadful work of death was done, the man was mur- dered. But when the horrible tragedy was accomplished, an immitigable sense of loathing seized upon all the sur- Vivors, save one individual, and this one was Chiffin. He alone partook of the loathsome meal. Within a few hours afterward a vessel came in sight, and the shipwrecked wretches were taken on board; but, re- maining faithful to an oath which they had sworn previous to the casting of the lots, the dreadful tale of murder was not divulged; and as all traces of the crime had been cleared away from the boat ere it reached the ship, it was not sus- pected. In due course the vessel arrived in England, and Chiffin, finding that his father and his mother had died ot grief during his absence, was thrown loose upon the world. He became the associate of the vilest of the vile in the low dens and infamous neighbourhoods of London; and by the desperate ruffianism of his character, his daring exploits, his success in eluding the officers of justice, and his lavish expenditure of his ill-gotten gains, he was looked up to as a sort of chief or ruler amongst his companions. In the eourse of time the terrible tale relative to the murdered boatswain got abroad, either being whispered by one of Chiffin’s comrades on the occasion, or else vauntingly proclaimed by himself when in his cups, and thus the horrible appendage of Cannibal was joined to his name. Such was the dreadful character whom Ralph Farefield selected as the principal agent in his own murderous design. We must observe that Chiffin the Cannibal was now about four and twenty years of age, of middle height and muscular form, with a countenance of so diabolical an expression that were it possessed by the most honest man in existence it would be quite enough to hang him, though innocent, at the very first whisper charging him with an offence. There was something of such unredeemed ferocity, something CoOnnicoooKs (S(O)