The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 335: what you’re looking at

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

304 THE COURT OF LONDON Suddenly broke that iron sound upon the deep silence of the dungeon cell; suddenly rolled the metallic din upon the ear of the murderess. And with such startling, fearful, thrilling effect did it thus break through the utter stillness of the place, that. the milliner was shaken with a strong con- vulsive spasm which made her totter upon the stool. With a desperate effort she strove to recover her balance. The struggle was as brief as the passage of a single idea through the brain, but it was the last frenzied effort of one who stood on the black brink of eternity. A sound between a shriek and a cry burst from her lips as she felt that the stool was upsetting beneath her, and down she fell. But her fall was instantaneously broken by the abrupt jerk of the tightened cord; there was a sudden sensation as if all the blood in her body had gushed up, hot and boiling into her bursting brain, and myriads of bright sparks flashed before her eyes. Desperately she threw up her arms and ap- plied her fingers to the noose that was strangling her; but the cord was woven strongly and her weight was heavy, and thus she could neither break nor loosen it. Maddened by her dying agonies and by the rending thoughts that swept with the keen sharpness of razors through her brain, she tried to regain the stool with her feet, but it had upset and was below her reach; and then she strove, with the last energy of desperation, to raise herself up against the uneven, rugged masonwork. But her attempts were unavailing, a sense of weakness came upon her with giant strides, and she swung and dangled, in her hideous convulsions, against the wall up which she could not climb. Her struggles — her death-agonies and writhings — had now lasted nearly a minute and were horrible beyond all delineation, frightful beyond any human power of description; but their acme was reached, their height was passed, and as their intensity subsided with a proportionate rapidity, their excruciating torments yielded to a numbness which speedily passed into death itself. When the morning dawned and the turnkey visited the cell, Mrs. Brace was discovered hanging to the bars of the window. She was instantaneously cut down, and the surgeon was sent for; but he found the corpse quite cold and declared that the wretched murderess must have been dead some hours. CORNICE NOOLKS (E(0)