The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. 141 caught, I’m safe for a hempen cravat. I have long escaped, but it is only in consequence of my being so precious cautious.” | Well, business is business; and ’m ready; but how shall we it ?” ‘‘That’s a question; I don’t like cutting his throat, it makes such a bloody mess, and then there are traces which may one day see the light.” ‘*What do you say toa little strangulation—mere choking, you know? It leaves no mark.” ‘*So be it. Where's the rope, and beam ?” ‘Yonder is a nail that will hold a halter, and a man at the end of it, if ever it would anything.” As he spoke he pointed to a nail over the door, through a chink of which poor Mabel was viewing them, and listening in an agony of fear and apprehension. She could not move or speak; her whole frame seemed spell-bound; she stood like a statue, immovable, and in one position. She had remained here ever since they had come, and she had, moreover, heard all they said; she knew they were about to commit murder, and yet she could not raise a single cry of alarm to save the wretched man from his fate. That the mendicant was not with them she was fully aware, and who these men were, she, of course, could not guess; they were some midnight marauders and murderers, she had no doubt, but they were quite ignorant of her presence. Indeed, they were perfectly assured, in their own minds, that the house was altogether empty of even an occasional inhabitant. The two men looked at their victim, and turned him over and over several times, but nothing more than an occasional deep breath or slight groan escaped him. ‘¢ Bill, we should have had a tough job to have had any strug- gle with this cove, if we hadn’t drugged him.” ‘*So we should—so we should,” said the other; ‘‘and now we must manufacture a halter out of his handkerchiefs,” So saying he took two from the person of the insensible man, and began to tie them togetherin apeculiar manner. This done, they adjusted it round the neck of the victim in a tight slip- no e They now got the insensible man up in a sitting posture, and began to feel carefully over his person, and turned every one of his pockets out, one after the other, in a very expeditious manner, which showed they were old adepts at that sort of thing. Ther each took him beneath the arms and dragged him to the spot indicated, and poor Mabel was horrified to tind that they were about to commit the atrocious deed within a few inches of where she stood. However, she was so entranced, that, had her life depended upon it, she could not move or close her eyes to the awful scene that was about to be enacted; neither could she utter one single shriek to save the unfortunate man’s life, so bound up were her faculties. Mabel could see and hear, but she could not move, she could not speak, and her very breath came and went witha suppressed sound, the current of her blood seemed frozen within: comicbooks. com