From the dead my eyes turned to the living. Five men were seated on a form, and behind each individual a man of peculiar appearance stood, whom Mr. Hartley told me in a whisper, belonged to a celebrated community long since extinct--Bow Street runners. On the persons who occupied the bench the gaze of all within the room was concentrated, and I examined them, from right to left, attentively. The first was genteelly dressed, and his general appearance was superior to that of his companions. His exterior exhibited tokens of vulgar opulence; and watch, and brooch, and ring, all valuable, told that had he been criminal, the plea of poverty could not be used in extenuation. Beside him a man was seated, whose dress was shabby and general appearance disgusting. His head was swathed in a bloody handkerchief; and it was announced that, in a murderous affray on the preceding night, his jaw-bone had been severely fractured. The third was a blackguard of ordinary stamp; but the fourth and fifth, Mark Antony and his companion at once recognised as old acquaintances. “By the hole in my coat!” said the ratcatcher, in a whisper, “I would swear to that dacent couple in a thousand. That _critch_ * without any carcase, good nor bad, and the dark-muzzled scoundrel beside him--more betoken, I think it was himself, the murderin’ thief, that giv me the black eye.” * Anglice--a hunchback. I looked at the scoundrels, with whose appearances the reader is already familiar. Gracious God! was I so nearly hurried from existence by the bludgeon of that truculent-looking Jew, or the knife of that contemptible hunchback? But my thoughts were speedily turned into another channel. The coroner took his place; the jury were empannelled; and the inquest formally commenced. [Illustration: 0249] It would be unnecessary to trespass upon the reader’s patience, and narrate in detail every particular attendant on a mercenary murder. The money intended to procure my death, by a singular accident, caused the assassination of the guilty wretch who had been the hired agent to effect it. In the remote place, and at the untimely hour when Sloman met a doom he merited too well, it was supposed that the foul deed would have been effected in full security. Guilt plots cunningly, but a higher influence mars the best-laid schemes. An outcast, without a roof to cover her, had crept for shelter into a dilapidated building, and, unseen and undiscovered, overheard the murderers arrange their plans. She saw them waylay the devoted wretch, knock him on the head, and afterwards, by the light of a dark-lantern, plunder the dead body. When they retired, she followed unperceived, and traced them into the dwelling of their employer. She acquainted the Bow Street myrmidons of the transaction; led them first, to the place where the murdered man was found, and afterwards, to the house where she knew the ruffians had been harboured.