The String of Pearls (1850), p. 576

although he did strike himself, it was not with anything like sufficient force to do himself any hurt.
The hammer was wrested from him in a moment, and he was thrown to the floor of the cell, and the heavy irons placed upon him.

CHAPTER CXXXII.
TODD MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE IN NEWGATE, AND TRIES AN ESCAPE.

In the course of a quarter of an hour more, Todd was left alone. The irons he wore weighed upwards of a hundredweight, and it was with some difficulty that he managed to get up, and sit upon the stone seat that was in the cell.
It was close upon evening, and the cell was getting very dark indeed, so f hat the walls, close as they were together, were only very dimly discernable indeed.
Todd rested his head upon his hands, and thought.
"Has it then really come to this?" he said. "Am I truly doomed to die? Oh, what a dreadful thing it is for me now to begin to doubt of what I always thought myself so sure, namely, that there was no world beyond the grave. Oh, if I could only still please myself with an assurance of that! But I cannot—I cannot now. Oh, no—no—no."
He started, for the cell door opened, and the turnkey brought him in his food for the night, which he placed on the floor. It was not then the custom to sit up with condemned prisoners.
"There," said the man, "it's more than you deserve. Good-night, and be hanged to you. Here's the sheriff been kicking up the devil's delight in the prison about that knife affair.''
"I hope he will discharge you all," said Todd.
"Do you?"
"Oh, yes. I wish you had all one neck only, and I a knife at it. With what a pleasant gash I would force it in—in—in!"
"Well, you are a nice article, I must say."
"Bring me two candles, and pens, ink, and paper."
The turnkey stared with astonishment.
"Anything else," he said, "in a small way that you'd like? Buttered rolls, perhaps, and a glass of something good? Perhaps a blunderbuss would suit you? I
tell you what it is, old fellow, it ain't very often that anybody goes out from here on a Monday morning to be scragged, that we don't feel a little sorry for them, but I don't think we shall any of us cry after you. You may sleep or do what you like now until to-morrow morning, for you have got it all to yourself. Two candles, indeed! Well I'm sure—what next? Two candles!—Oh, my eye!"
The turnkey banged shut the door of the cell, and barred and bolted it in a passion; and then away he went to the lobby, which was the great gossiping place, to relate the cool demands of Sweeney Todd.
Once more the prisoner was alone. For some time he set in silence, and then he muttered—
"All the night to myself. He will not visit this cell until the morning. A long—long night; many hours of solitude. Well, I may chance to improve them. It was well in that scuffle for the hammer, when they threw me down, that I contrived to grasp a handful of tools from the smith's basket, and hid them among my clothing. Let me see what I have—ay, let me see, or rather feel, for by this light, or rather by this darkness, I can only judge of them by the feel."
The tools that Sweeney Todd had been clever enough to abstract from the