little phial, nearly half a wine-glass full, he quickly drank it off: no
use--no use; the agitation of his mind was too intense, and the habit
of a continually increasing dose had made him proof against the poison;
it would not even lull him, but seemed to stretch and rack his nerves,
exciting him to deeds of bloody daring. Should he rush out, like a Malay
running a muck, with a carving-knife in each hand, and kill right and
left:--vengeance! vengeance! on Jonathan Floyd, and John Vincent? No,
no; for some of them at last would overcome him, think him mad, and, O
terror!--his doom for life, without the means of death, would be
solitary confinement. "Stay! with this knife in my hand--means of
death--yes, it shall be so." And he hurriedly drew the knife across his
throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from
cutting--he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all.

But the heart, the heart--that should be easier! And the miscreant, not
quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet,
Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha!
hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?"

He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly
into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord
from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put
his head in, kicked the chair away--and swung by his wounded neck; in
vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting
nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the
ground.

"Bless us!" said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging
their curl-papers to go to bed: "what can that noise be in Mr.
Jennings's room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn't