The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

110 Sd THE STRING OF PEARLS. Paste secre setae EEL OEE DIN CRO IG ea n eat REET ELEONORA LOE EE —— re Ss. ae cata aa ay me to make pies unless I | a | i i GAGS i eI RE occa ed lea ee teem ee '| victim, and, besides, what power on earth can force | like, 1 should wish to know ?’ ‘| Ashe stepped out of the place in which the meat was kept into the large vault | where the ovens were, he trod upon a piece of paper that was lying upon the | |} eround, and which he was quite certain he had not observed before. It was | Fresh and white, and clean too, so that it could not have been long there, and he | picked it up with some curiosity. That curiosity was, however, soon turned to | | dismay when he saw what was written upon 1, which was to the following effect, | | and well calculated to produce a considerable amount of alarm in the breast of || | any one situated as he was, so entirely friendless and so entirely hopeless of any | | extraneous aid in those dismal vaults, which he began, with a shudder, to suspect || || would be his tomb :—~ “You are getting dissatisfied, and therefore it becomes necessary to explain to |} | you your real position, which is simply this:—You are @ prisoner, ana were such || | from the first moment that you sct foot where you now are; and you will find, | || unless youare resolved upon sacrificing your life, that your best plan will be to quietly give into the circumstances in which you find yourself placed. Without || eoing into any argument or details upou the subject, it is sufficient to inform you | that so long as you continue to make the pies, you will be safe ; but if yuu refuse, || | then the first time you are caught asleep your throat will be cut.” || This document was so much to the purpose, and really had so little of verbosity | | '| about it, that it was extremely difficult to doubt its sincerity. It dropped from |, || the half-paralysed hands of that man, who, in the depth of his distress, and urged | t on by great necessity, had accepted a situation that he would have given worlds to |} escape from, had he been possessed of them. “Gracious Heaven !? he exclaimed, ‘and am I then indeed condemned to | such a slavery ? Is it possible, that even in the heart of London, I am a prisoner, i || and without the means of resisting the most frightful threats that are uttered | || against me Pg Surely, surely this must be alla dream! It is too terrific to be | + true !? He sat down upon that low stool where his predecessor had sat before, receiving H | his death-wound from the assassin who had glided in behind him, and dealt him || that crashing blow, whose only mercy was that it had at once deprived the victim of || existence. He could have wept bitterly, wept ashe there sat, for he thought over | dayslong passed away, of opportunities let go by with the heediess laugh of 1}-youth; he thought over all the chances and fortunes of his life, and now to find '| himself the miserable inhabitant ofa cellar, condemned to a mean and troublesome '| employment, without even the liberty of leaving that, to starve if he chose, upon | pain of death—a frightful death, which had been threatened him, was indeed. tor- }ment! No wonder that at times he felt himself unnerved, and that a child might || have conquered him,-while at other moments such a feeling of despair would ‘| come across him, that he called aloud upon his enemies to make their appearance, ||} and give him at least the chance ofa strugyle for his life. ‘| “if Tam to die,” he cried, “Jet me die with some weapon in my hand, as 1}a brave man ought, and I will not complain, for there is little indeed in life | a which should induce me to cling to it ; but I will not be murdered in the ||. He sprang to his feet, and rushing up to the door, which opened from the house into the vaults, he made a violent and desperate effort to shake it. But such a |, contingency as this had surely been looked forward to and provided against, for + the door was of amazing strength, and most effectually resisted all his efforts, so | that the result of his endeavours was but to exhaust himself, and he ‘staggered back, panting and despairing, to the seat he had so recently leff. ‘Then he heard a voice, and upon looking up he saw that the small square opening (in the upper part of the door, through which he had been before addressed, |was open, and a face there appeared, but it was not the face of Mrs. Lovett. }}On the contrary, it was a large and hideous male physiognomy, and the voice ||, hat came from if was croaking and harsh, sounding mest unmusically upon the