They got him
away and into the coach, where they put him on a seat; but he soon fell
moaning down among the straw at the bottom, and lay there.
The two men were with him. Slyme being on the box with the driver; and
they let him lie. Happening to pass a fruiterer's on their way; the door
of which was open, though the shop was by this time shut; one of them
remarked how faint the peaches smelled.
The other assented at the moment, but presently stooped down in quick
alarm, and looked at the prisoner.
'Stop the coach! He has poisoned himself! The smell comes from this
bottle in his hand!'
The hand had shut upon it tight. With that rigidity of grasp with which
no living man, in the full strength and energy of life, can clutch a
prize he has won.
They dragged him out into the dark street; but jury, judge, and hangman,
could have done no more, and could do nothing now. Dead, dead, dead.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
IN WHICH THE TABLES ARE TURNED, COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN
Old Martin's cherished projects, so long hidden in his own breast, so
frequently in danger of abrupt disclosure through the bursting forth
of the indignation he had hoarded up during his residence with Mr
Pecksniff, were retarded, but not beyond a few hours, by the occurrences
just now related.
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