The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 359: what you’re looking at

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

330 REYNOLDS’ WORKS might be destined to feed a maw as ravenous as that which had just devoured his treacherous foe, and again, for the thousandth time since he first became a wanderer amidst the wilds of that jungle, did a cold shudder sweep through his entire frame. His eyes were still riveted upon the river’s bank, and he beheld the alligator plunge into the water. . The Burker now pursued his way. He walked rapidly, for he had collected all his energies for this last attempt to find an egress from the jungle. To his delight he found that his path became more easy, that he could proceed for long intervals without being compelled to plunge into thickets, or drag his feet through the rank luxuriance of herbage where reptiles might lurk. The high trees, too, were fewer and farther between, and remembering how insensibly, as it were, the jungle commenced, he began to flatter himself with the hope that it was now drawing to an end, — gradually losing its wildness and its horrors as it merged into the cultivated parts of the country that lay beyond. As he was proceeding, he suddenly beheld a human form at a little distance, and quickening his pace, he soon acquired the certainty that it was the surviving gossoon who was toiling slowly along. Presently that itinerant looked around, and the Burker, with a heart leaping joyously, sped forward to join him, for there was no longer a doubt that he had at last reached the extremity of the jungle. Welcome as is the sight of land to the storm-tossed mariner who without compass has been drifting hither and thither amidst the perils of the ocean, was the spectacle which now greeted the Burker’s view. For in the horizon he beheld the outlines of buildings, and all the interval between the verge of the jungle and that town was occu- pied by cultivated lands. Here and there, too, a cottage appeared, and the wanderer felt as if he were entering upon the confines of civilization once more. The gossoon was waiting for him to come up. Be it remembered that this was the first of the three who had appeared at the cave, — the one whose inveterate habit of sleeping had so terribly irritated the Burker. On approaching the gossoon, the Englishman perceived that his countenance was haggard and care-worn, and still EGOmicsdooks (E(0)