Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

~~ me © 110 THE WRONG MAN. Fragments of the ruin were scattered far and wice, and the two ‘vyho were waiting in the boat turned pale as they looked into each other’s faces by the lurid glare, and heard the cinders, stones and sand sprinkling into the water round them. When the sudden brightness of the explosion passed away, the earth for some minutes seemed wrapped in profound darkness, so feeble and sickly was the light of the moon in contrast with the intense gush of flame, which had shed its lurid glow over a wide circle, startling the birds far away in the forest, and causing them to rise fluttering in the air, as if the day had suddenly dawned. A considerable time elapsed before those who were bearing .Sedley dared to moye, so long did portions of the wreck con- tinue to fall from the immense height to which they had been ejected. The tremendous shock seemed to have aroused the | senses of the poor old man, who faintly opened his eyes and looked about, as if to ascertain the cause of the dreadful explo- sion. The ruins of the block-house were still blazing, and shed a flickering light over the immediate scene of the acci dent, and as he feebly turned his face in that direction, som thing like intelligence seemed struggling to his eye. A cryo horror now burst from a group clustered round some objec which had just fallen a little in advance of the party wh were carrying Sedley. “Tt is the body of Dudley !” shouted two or three voices ; and attracted by the exclamation, all crowded to the spot. A blackened and mutilated trunk, from which the head and one . of the legs had been separated by the concussion, was lying on the grass; and the tattered and scorched garments in which it was wrapped, though much defaced, were easily recognized as those which had been worn by the prisoner. This information, communicated to Sedley, seemed to have an electric effect in rekindling for a moment the nearly extin- gnished spark of life. His eye lighted up, and his face worked with an emotion unlike that of bodily pain. He desired to be set down, and begged those who were standing near him to hear and mark his words. He then proceeded, in a yoice low and broken by the difficulty of respiration, to confess that it was he, not Dudley, who had slein Overton. The by- standers at first cast covert and incredalous glances at each comliclooks.comn