The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 326: what you’re looking at

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

300 THE COURT OF LONDON wandering about the dwelling at a venture, he might be seen, his design would be suspected, windows might be thrown up and an alarm raised, before he could possibly silence the two old people for ever. How, then, was he to proceed? ‘Trust to the chapter of accidents,” said the Hangman to himself, “ for I can’t very well make my position more desperate than it is, whereas I may contrive to improve it.’ The villain! Though now menaced by all the frightful consequences of murder, he hoped to improve his condition by other murders. The morning, as we have already hinted, had fully dawned, and it was quite light inside his chamber. His countenance had a more than usually horrible appearance. It was ghastly with the terrors that he had so recently been conjuring up, and by the evil passions which were agitating in his mind. This ghastliness was enhanced by the unshorn condition of his beard, which blackened all the lower part of his counte- nance, while a sinister light, such as that of the reptile, vibrated in his eyes, gleaming from beneath his dark, over- hanging brows. ‘Taking the pistols from his pocket, he assured himself that they were loaded, and put fresh priming in the pan of each. Having restored them to his capacious pockets, he took out his clasp-knife, opened it, and tried the point. Then did a grim smile of terrible satisfaction appear upon his features, and as he raised his eyes he caught the reflection of himself in a little mirror suspended to the wall. The man actually started, as if that mirror were a window through which a fiend was looking in upon him, for he never felt, vile as he knew his aspect to be, that it was so utterly diabolical as at that moment. His plan being settled, his mind made up, and his weapons duly prepared for any emergency, he took off his great clumsy lace-up boots, and opened the door with the noise- lessness of an accomplished burglar. The passage with which the chamber communicated was lighted by a window at the end, and Coffin perceived that four doors opened from it, of which that of his own chamber was one. A dead silence prevailed throughout the dwelling, or, at least, no sound of any kind met his ears. Stealing out into the passage, the Hangman tried the door of the chamber adjoining his own. It opened, he looked in, but no one was there. It at COMiICloo© S (C@) im