The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 314: what you’re looking at

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

THE TIGER 985 Burker’s thigh, and then each successive coil became less and less in circumference, to the thin, tapering neck on which the comparatively small head was fixed. During this second interval of silence, this period of suspended death- struggles on the part of the tiger, the reptile’s eyes again appeared to be looking up toward the Burker with a gleam- ing, vibrating ight. He endeavoured to avert his own gaze, but he found it irresistibly bent down again upon those small dark brown reptile orbs that were twinkling as diamonds. Again, all of a sudden, was there a desperate effort made by the tiger to release itself. With all the power of its hind legs, and of its form, which was well-nigh as supple as that of the snake itself, did it strive to drag the reptile down from the tree. The boa-constrictor seemed to elongate like a tightened cable when a ship is pulling hard at. its moorings; but in a few moments the wondrous elasticity of the serpent was displayed, for, apparently without an effort, it shortened its length, as it were, and drew the tiger completely in toward the root of the tree. Then, the Burker, with hair standing on end, and the flesh creeping coldly, heard the crashing of the bones of the agonizing wild beast, for the coils of the snake were giving the last fatal evidence of their constricting power. Slowly advanced the snake’s head, farther and farther over the body of the tiger; tighter and tighter became the coils; more continuous, but likewise more and more languid, grew the convulsions and the writhings of the perishing wild beast. At length the tiger lay motionless, but not this time to recover from its exhaustion and gather strength for a new effort to shake off its enemy. The tiger was dead. Again there was an interval of silence, and the Burker might have fancied that the snake was dead likewise, were it not that its eyes continued to gleam with that horrible reptile light, and that its length between the branch sus- taining its tail and the commencement of its coils around the tiger dangled lazily to and fro, like a partially loosened cable agitated by the wind. But not long was this interval of silence, for soon did the bones again begin to crash, and now all along the supple length of the serpent there were the evidences of the strong muscular motion, the vibrations and the tensions, by which the constricting process was carried on against the last impediments. The GOMIIGdIOG SS) (©)