We had to wait outside a good while before we could venture in; and when we did, there he was lying like a man asleep in his bed, with his nightcap on, and his hand under his cheek, and he smiling down on the flags, very sly, like a man who has won something cleverly.

He was dead, and his limbs cold by this time.' There was an inquest.

Mr.Dangerfield 'looked very composed in death,' says an old letter, and he lay 'very like sleep,' in his bed, 'his fingers under his cheek and temple,' with the countenance turned 'a little downward, as if looking upon something on the floor,' with an 'ironical smile;' so that the ineffaceable lines of sarcasm, I suppose, were traceable upon that jaundiced mask.
Some said it was a heart disease, and others an exhalation from the prison floor.

He was dead, that was all the jury could say for certain, and they found 'twas 'by a visitation of God.' The gaoler, being a superstitious fellow, was plaguily nervous about Mr.Dangerfield's valediction, and took clerical advice upon it, and for several months after became a very serious and ascetic character; and I do believe that the words were spoken in reality with that sinister jocularity in which his wit sported like church-yard meteors, when crimes and horrors were most in his mind.
The niece of this gaoler said she well remembered her uncle, when a very old man, three years before the rebellion, relating that Mr.Dangerfield came by his death in consequence of some charcoal in a warming pan he had prevailed on him to allow him for his bed, he having complained of cold.

He got it with a design to make away with himself, and it was forgotten in the room.