The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

64 THE COURT OF LONDON Hangman, who was somewhat under the influence of the two bottles of wine which he had drunk, rose from his chair, accosted Ernestina, and stooping down, began covering her face with kisses. She struggled, O heavens! she struggled as if it were a huge boa-constrictor that was thus slobbering her with its forked tongue previous to the process of degluti- tion; but she was so bound in the chair and her arms were secured in such a manner that she could afford no effectual resistance, and as to screaming out, her powers of utterance were either absorbed in the horror of her feelings, or else the few stifled cries which might perhaps have found vent were kept down by the brutal kisses of the monster. “ Now, don’t you think I am an affectionate kind of fellow? ’” he asked. ‘‘ But come, it’s time we should be off,”’ and with these words he loosened the towels which held her ladyship in the chair. Panting and gasping from the half-smothering effects of the caresses he had bestowed upon her, and with a deep inward sense of self-loathing, wretched, too, oh, wretched beyond all possibility of description, Ernestina had scarcely consciousness or energy left to think at all. But when the ruffian bade her rise, with an intimation that she was to depart in his company, she looked up into his face in a manner of anxious inquiry. ‘‘ Well, I suppose I spoke intelligibly enough,” he growl- ingly observed, ‘‘ and if not, I can soon make you under- stand. You are going away with me to be my mistress, to live with me, — no, not exactly to live with me, ’cause why, it wouldn’t do to take you to the same house where Sally Melmoth is. But I will put you into a nice comfortable lodging over in Bermondsey.”’ ‘‘ Monster, wretch, villain! ’’ exclaimed Ernestina, now starting from the chair to which she was no longer bound, ‘‘ let this scene end at once.” “ Well, then, it will end in this manner,” cried the Hang- man, snatching up his clasp-knife from the table and raising the ghastly, gleaming blade above Ernestina’s head. ‘“‘ Mercy, mercy! ”’ she ejaculated, falling upon her knees, for there was something frightful in the aspect of that hideous knife. ‘“‘ Now listen, while I say just a few last words,’”’ exclaimed Coffin. comllclooolks (C(O) iin