The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 320: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRANGLER 291 send a bullet whizzing through the same opening which served as the means for the view taken by that gleaming eye. It likewise occurred to the Burker that the Stranglers might have no powder and ball to render their firearms available, for he did not remember to have seen them take any such ammunition from about the persons of the mur- dered travellers. But what was the Burker to do in order to escape from the enemy, or enemies, as the case might be? While lying flat upon the grass, he was safe from the lasso, but this position could not be maintained for ever. He believed a deadly struggle to be inevitable with whomsoever the well contained, for that it was really an enemy, or enemies, he was eqaully convinced, or else why should such secret ambush be maintained? After all the horrors endured in respect to reptiles and wild beasts, it was positively a relief to the Burker’s mind to reflect that he had now to deal with human beings. It was a warfare more after his own fashion, and as the man naturally possessed a dauntless courage, he was not now to be overawed by the vicinity of a human foe. Indeed, he had become so reckless of life that he cared not how soon it was lost; at the same time it was a matter of satisfaction to reflect that if it were now to be surrendered it would not be to a snake nor a wild beast, and he was resolved also to sell that life of his as dearly as possible. After some few minutes spent in meditation, he bethought himself of a stratagem to draw the enemy from the am- bush, and thereby make himself aware of the number whom he might have to encounter, as well as of the nature of the hostile weapons against which he might be called upon to de- fend himself. He accordingly feigned to be asleep. Gradually he suffered the hand with which he had shaded his eyes to fall away from his face and drop upon the grass, with the languid, uncontrolled movement of one who was veritably slumbering. At the same time he turned himself a little more sideways, as if the beams of the sun caused this motion, even on the part of a sleeper, and he kept one eye just so slightly open that he could still discern anything that might take place at the mouth of the well. A few more minutes now elapsed, when the Burker beheld a dark countenance appearing above the thicket, and he GOMmIiGdoG SS) (CO)