The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 385: what you’re looking at

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

356 REYNOLDS’ WORKS with coins, but so discoloured as to afford the idea at first that they were all of copper or even of a baser metal. But the dervish, with another ejaculation of joy, rang a few of them on the paved floor, bit them with his teeth, and proved them to be silver. He then danced in the gleeful- ness of his mood, and the Burker was likewise so overjoyed that he forgot all his past enmity and hatred toward the man through whose instrumentality this colossal treasure was discovered. Some minutes elapsed before the gossoon could so far regain his composure as to reflect upon the course which was next to be adopted. Nor did it appear as if he were very well able to make up his mind in a hurry, for he signalled to the Burker that they should quit the cavern for the present. The Englishman now once again abandoned him- self to the guidance of the gossoon, and he offered no objec- tion when that individual began to lead the way up the stone steps. They had each lighted a second torch, but these were already burned so low as to last but for a minute or two longer. The gossoon, as we have said, began to lead the way up the steps, the Burker following. But all in a moment it struck the latter that the Hindu was hastening up with a suspicious quickness, and an idea of treachery flashed through the Englishman’s mind. The gossoon sprang out of the aperture, and the next instant the Burker, to his ‘horror, beheld the masonry gliding over him. With a cry, or, rather, yell, at the hideous thought of being buried alive in that tomb, he thrust up his right hand, which held the fragment of the blazing torch, and it came in contact with the gossoon’s hand, which was upon the ring of the central stone. A howl of agony burst from the Hindu as the blazing fagot broke all over his flesh; his hand quitted its hold on the ring. The Burker rolled back the masonry, and leaped forth from the subterranean. Now these two men stood facing each other with aspects of fierce and malignant defiance. The gossoon’s treachery was but too well understood by the Burker, for the per- fidious Hindu had intended to accomplish his death by starvation or suffocation in the subterranean, so that he might possess himself of the whole of the treasure. The Burker could no more repose the slightest confidence in CORNIELIOOKS (E(©)