The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 294: what you’re looking at

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

THE JUNGLE 265 glimpse as it flung itself from amidst the trees. Indeed so strong was his imagination that his contortions and con- vulsions were as agonizing and his throes as horrible as if the serpent had verily and positively got him in its folds. Though all this endured but for a few instants, it was a perfect century of excruciations, and yet no cry escaped his lips, the power of utterance was paralyzed, and his agony was perhaps all the greater because he could not give vent to it in one long, loud, pealing cry. But it was merely in imagination that he was thus suffer- ing. On came the hideous rush that made his blood curdle within him and a glacial chill sweep down his very backbone. But the rush swept past him at a little distance, still amidst the underwood, and then there was a heavy splash in some water that had remained concealed from his eyes. He sprang up to his feet, he rushed away from the spot, but on a little eminence he for a moment reverted his gaze as if by an irresistible fascination. Thence he caught a glimpse of the pool into which the monstrous reptile had plunged, and he beheld its whole length darting through the water, just underneath the surface, and with its head above it. Away sped the Burker; for a long time he ran, experiencing the awful horror which the spectacle had left upon his mind, as well as the dread that the reptile would yet pursue him and make him its prey. When thoroughly exhausted, and now with a burning perspiration upon him, he threw himself upon some grass. A loud hissing immediately fell upon his ear; he sprang up as if galvanized, and he caught a glimpse of a cobra gli- ding away at a little distance. Away he started again; the wretch’s brain was almost turned with indescribable horror. At length he beheld what appeared like a rocky elevation, not more than thirty feet high at its greatest altitude, and thither he bent his steps. It proved to be what it appeared, and the Burker found that it contained a cave, without any herbage in its immediate vicinity, so that he walked with a mind relieved from the dread of having his ankle suddenly encircled by some venomous reptile. Yet he was cautious in entering the cave, for fear lest it should be the lair of a wild beast. It did not penetrate far into the rock, and thus the Burker was soon satisfied that no brute enemy was to be encountered GOMIIGIOOkKS (S©)