The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

THE GOSSOONS 325 attempt. He bethought himself that all three of the gos- soons had come from precisely the same direction, and it was altogether in an opposite direction that his own former attempts had been made to issue from the jungle. Surely those men must have journeyed from a village or hamlet at no great distance? At all events he was determined to push forward in that direction, for sooner than endure the prolonged horrors of the jungle, he would dare all its ghastli- est, frightfulest perils. Having slaked his thirst at the crystal spring, and armed with his stout bludgeon, the Burker set out upon his journey. He strove to call to his aid all his most stubborn courage and dogged resolution. When floundering through the long grass where reptiles might lurk, he said to himself that it was better to die by the bite of the cobra than to endure the long agony of terror, with the prospect of famine, in the cave which he had just left. When forced by the cir- cumstances of his route to pass near a tree, he strove to persuade himself that it were better to render up existence in the crushing folds of the boa-constrictor than to linger out that life in the awful solitude of the cavern. Or again, when passing near a stream, he thought it were preferable to risk being devoured by the jaws of an alligator than to continue to be whirled onward by a hurricane of agonizing alarms and a sense of excruciating perils. It was in this manner the wandering outcast endeavoured to sustain his spirits; but, oh, how desperate must he have felt his case to be when it admitted of such horrible consolations! For about two hours had he advanced, steadily pursuing the direction from which the gossoons had come, when on emerging upon a sward of short, sweet grass, he beheld a dark object lying at a little distance. On approaching it, he found to his surprise that it was the wallet which the youngest gossoon had brought with him in the morning. On opening it, the Burker found that it contained a considerable quantity of the provender with which it was crammed when first produced, and his wonder was now succeeded by joy. But surprise was soon uppermost again, and this became blended with terror likewise, for how could the wallet be there unless something had happened to the young gossoon himself? And if he had become a prey to a wild beast, might not that same ferocious animal be still lurking in the COnnIClOOKS (C(O)