The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

A FRIGHTFUL TRAGEDY 125 no uncommon occurrence for the rabid and insane to accuse themselves or others of the most heinous crimes.”’ ‘‘ Ah! isit indeed so? ”’ cried Mrs. Brace, greedily catching at the explanation which the doctor gave naturally enough; for he little thought how much truth there was in the last words that he had overheard falling from the doomed man’s lips. ‘Take her away! take her away!’ suddenly yelled forth the wretch, breaking out again. “‘ It was she who incited me, I say, ’twas she who made me doit! The first man was murdered by her hand alone —”’ Z ‘‘ For God’s sake give him opium! ’’ whispered Mrs. Brace, seizing the doctor’s arm with nervous violence and up- turning toward him a countenance the ghastliness of which terrified him for a moment. ‘‘T will do so,” he said; ‘* give me the bottle.”’ But scarcely had he taken it in his hand, when Frederick Dray flung forth both his arms with a sudden paroxysm of lancinating agony, and the phial was dashed from the sur- geon’s grasp. | “They shall not hang me — they shall not force me up the steps of the scaffold!” he cried, in an infuriate manner. “No, no, they must not pinion me, they must not fasten the noose around my neck and put the nightcap upon my head! I am not guilty. I did not murder both, — only one! ’Twas she —’twas she,” he yelled forth, fixing his savage glaring eyes upon Mrs. Brace, and extending one arm with pointed finger toward the wretched woman who shrank back shuddering all over in the easy chair where she was seated. ‘‘ She poisoned the first man, I tell you, and she helped me to hang the second. Then we raised astone, —it was in the back kitchen, down below, the back kitchen, of the other house, mind, and then we buried them at dead of night, not both at the same time, though both together — ”’ “Sir, doctor, my dear friend,’? murmured Mrs. Brace, now recovering the use of her speech and once more clutch- ing the medical man violently by the arm, “ you must put an end to this, or it will drive me mad also! ”’ “‘ Oh, now the serpents coil more and more around me!” — yelled forth the rabid wretch; “ hell’s flames have caught me, I am on fire, I am on fire, I am burning, —’tis agony, anguish, horror, horror! Ah! now the fiends are bearing me GomiilGaooks (S©)