The Wrong Man — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

THE TRUTH REVEALED. 91 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 move, so long did portions of the wreck con- tinue to fall from the immense hight 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 4 flickering light over the immediate scene of the accident, and as he feebly turned his face in that direction, something like intelligence seemed struggling to his eye. A cry of horror now burst from a group clustered round some object which had just eo a little in advance of the party who were carrying ey. “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 tlie 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- guished spark of life. His eye lighted up, and his face worked With an emotion unlike that of bodily pain. He desired to be Set duwn, and begged those who were standing near him to hear and mark his words. He then proceeded, in a voice low and broken by the difficulty of respiration, to confess that it was he, not Dudley, who had slain Overton. The bystanders at first cast covert and incredulous glances at each other, as if the attributed the old man’s speech to the wanderings of his min Bat he related, though in words so choked and interrupted 48 to be scarcely articulate, yet otherwise in so connected and clear a manner, the circumstances of that fatal affray, that the Villagers were forced to believe. —. “ But the berse-shoe, and the-hoof-prints,” said one in whose Mind «loubt was still struggling. asck 7 “My horse had been Iamed and tired down in the first chase, feebly responded the old man, with a painful effort—“ I took his—little thinking it would be the means of Jeading him to this untimaly death.” Thedioss shed from the ruined block-house shone on the old - Man as he made these revelations, fiving a ghustly effect to the Workings of his pallid features. He sunk back exhausted in = ( the ation, and for some moments remained fate pip orca wm The bystanders (their number pay 5 Be OE ERM Ve eee Rae pee Oe ee \ - . ‘ ‘ J ‘ r¢ ; Fr ‘a ~ é e — oe Pot eee er a , ate Ns snes. * - 5 - : Wy i vy 9 ° 7-7 by from ecomichooks:.com = a . - es