The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 293: what you’re looking at

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

264 REYNOLDS’ WORKS No, it must be an illusion, all those stems were utterly still; for how could they possibly be agitated when there was not a breath of air to ruffle the smallest of the leaves that belonged to their crowning foliage? And yet the Burker felt as if his gaze were irresistibly retained there by some unknown fascination. Ah! again the stem of that tree appeared to move. Yes, and now the branches themselves were shaken! The next instant all was still. The Burker sat stupefied by a vague sense of terror, his eyes riveted upon that stem. Though the ardent sun was bathing him, as it were, in its molten effulgence, yet was he now shudder- ing with a glacial chill, while the big drops burst out cold and clammy upon him. Oh, what a convulsing horror shook him with the strongest spasm as he suddenly beheld that seeming stem draw itself up from the ground and disappear amidst the foliage! Then among the branches and leaves of all those trees there was a rapid rushing, a vivid playing hither and thither, a continuous succession of bounds and leaps and springs, which shook tree after tree, and the Burker now knew it was the hideous frolicking of a snake amidst that foliage! He started up to his feet; he endeavoured to move, but overpowering horror riveted him to the spot. His lower limbs seemed turned into stone; they were as heavy as lead, just as they often appear to the dreamer in the midst of a terrific nightmare. Colder and more clammy still stood the perspiration upon him; he was literally bathed in his own agony. All of a sudden something darted forth from the canopy of verdure; it was the terrible boa-constrictor flinging its immense supple length out from amongst the interlacing branches and masses of foliage that had just proved the scene of its fearful gambolings. It was seen by the Burker but for a moment; it disappeared amongst the underwood, and then there was a rushing noise toward the spot where he stood like an effigy of marble, but with all the keenest sensibility of a man. Yet for not more than another instant did he stand thus as if petrified; down he fell, as if terror itself had become suddenly personified in some huge giant shape, and with an invisible foot crushed him to the earth. The wretch writhed upon the soil as if already encircled by the folds of the monstrous snake of which he had caught a CORIIE OC gs) (E()