The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 389: what you’re looking at

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

308 REYNOLDS’ WORKS that she applied it to another candle, Barney the Burker emerged from below. “Are they done for?’ was Mrs. Smedley’s rapidly put question. ‘“‘ Let’s see,’ said the Burker, and snatching the candle from her hand, he partially descended the steps, whence almost instantaneously returning, he added, ‘‘ They’re stunned, if not killed. And now what’s to be done next? ” Bab, in a hasty whisper, gave the wretch to understand that there was an officer in the passage, and that there were others outside, watching the back premises. “Take the light — go up quick,” said the Burker, “ tell the officer he’s wanted below, whimper a bit, and say as how your poor husband 1s took.”’ The woman instantaneously proceeded to obey Barney’s directions, and with the light in her hand, she ascended the stairs. We should observe that from the circumstance of the doors at top and bottom being closed, the officer in the passage had heard little or nothing of what was going on below; or if indeed that suddenly executed movement on the part of Mrs. Smedley, by which Tom was thrown into the pit, had met his ears, it might naturally have been taken for the quick, transient scuffle of an arrest being effected. Leaving the doors open — for she comprehended full well what the Burker’s intention was— the infamous woman assumed a look of deep distress, and accosting the officer who had been appointed to keep guard upon the front door, she said, in a whimpering tone, and breaking her words with an apparently convulsing sob, “ It’s all over. They have taken my poor dear man, and they want you down below. This is the way; there’s a light where they are. Oh, dear! oh, dear!” The woman’s part was so well played — and the whole proceeding seemed so natural — that the officer hesitated not for an instant to descend the steps to which she led him, — she herself remaining on the top to light him as he went down. The instant he reached the bottom he was felled by a blow from the Burker’s club; Bab Smedley rushed down the stairs, and her ruffian accomplice, at once perceiving that the unfortunate official was stunned, dragged him into the cellar, the huge door of which he closed and bolted. Another quick examination of the subterranean showed the miscreant CORNICLIOOKS m