The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

140 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. Come and sit down; we may as well enjoy the moments as they “‘T can only tell where you are by sound,” said the other. ‘‘We will throw a light oa the subject, then; here’s my darkey, it will illuminate us all, as well as the gemman in the sleepy fit that lies here.” ith a convulsive shudder and great mental effort, Mabel re- strained herself from uttering a loud shriek, but a suppressed sound, as that of a groan, escaped her. ‘What's that ?’ exclaimed he who was the last to sit down. ‘(What's what, you fool?” exclaimed his companion. ‘¢‘T thought I heard a groan. or some such thing.” ‘¢ Very likely you heard a groan; it was the wind wheezing and puffing through the old, deserted house.” Mabel, though shaking in every limb as though an ague had suddenly seized her, by a kind of instinct arose and crept to- ward a chink in the door that led to the next room. She dis- covered the chink in consequence of the light showing through it from their lantern. There she saw two men dressed in large white coats, or what had been white at one time, patched over in places. They were seated on the floor; they were big, burly men, with most villainous countenances. They held the one a drinking-cup, aud the other a dram-bottle. On the ground be- side them there was a dark-lantern with the shade taken off, and it threw a light upon them both, throwing them out into a kind of almost supernatural relief. Jt gave them a strange unearthly appearance; the profiles of their countenances were very distinct, and they looked at each other with a combined expression of cunning and villainy of a most brutal character. Mabel sickened at the sight of these two men; their counte- . nances bespoke a degree of depravity that can scarcely be cred- ited by anv human being. Murderers seemed written upon every lineament; but yet they were apparently unconscious of their own marked character, for they sat with an apparent calmness beside each other. On the floor beneath them lay the body of a man; he was well dressed, and tolerably young, as might be presumed by his hair and dress, He was living and breathing, but it was heavy and labored, as though some drug had been given him, or he had been drinking to excess. The unfortunate man was tossed down almost as though he had been a lump of lumber, and there allowed to re- main, which proved the strength of the drug that had been given him; and of this these two men must have been well aware. They were drinking and conversing in low tones to each other by turns, as though something serious now engaged their atten- tion, and they conversed mutually and seriously. ‘¢ Well, Jack,” said one, ‘‘now, I tell vou what it is—my opin- ion is that we might have a chance of being followed. Let's do what we have to do, at once; we have a distance to travel before we are in a place of safety, and there is a greater chance of being seen the later we go away from here, You kpow, Jack, if I am comicbooks. com