FATAL CONSEQUENCES.
IT was nearly two hours before daybreak—that time which in the autumn
of the year may be truly called the dead of night, when the streets are
silent and deserted, when even sound appears to slumber, and profligacy
and riot have staggered home to dream—it was at this still and silent
hour that the Jew sat watching in his old lair, with face so distorted
and pale, and eyes so red and bloodshot, that he looked less like a man
than like some hideous phantom, moist from the grave, and worried by an
evil spirit.
He sat crouching over a cold hearth, wrapped in an old torn coverlet,
with his face turned towards a wasting candle that stood upon a table
by his side. His right hand was raised to his lips, and as, absorbed
in thought, he bit his long black nails, he disclosed among his
toothless gums a few such fangs as should have been a dog’s or rat’s.
Stretched upon a mattress on the floor lay Noah Claypole fast asleep.
Towards him the old man sometimes directed his eyes for an instant,
then brought them back again to the candle, which, with long-burnt wick
drooping almost double, and hot grease falling down in clots upon the
table, plainly showed that his thoughts were busy elsewhere.
Indeed they were. Mortification at the overthrow of his notable
scheme, hatred of the girl who had dared to palter with strangers,
an utter distrust of the sincerity of her refusal to yield him up,
bitter disappointment at the loss of his revenge on Sikes, the fear of
detection and ruin and death, and a fierce and deadly rage kindled by
all,—these were the passionate considerations that following close
upon each other with rapid and ceaseless whirl shot through the brain
of Fagin, as every evil thought and blackest purpose lay working at
his heart.
He sat without changing his attitude in the least, or appearing to take
the smallest heed of time, until his quick ear seemed to be attracted
by a footstep in the street.
“At last,” muttered the Jew, wiping his dry and fevered mouth. “At
last.”
The bell rang gently as he spoke. He crept up stairs to the door,
and presently returned accompanied by a man muffled to the chin, who
carried a bundle under one arm. Sitting down and throwing back his
outer coat, the man displayed the burly frame of Sikes.
“There,” he said, laying the bundle on the table. “Take care of that,
and do the most you can with it. It’s been trouble enough to get; I
thought I should have been here three hours ago.”
Fagin laid his hand upon the bundle, and locking it in the cupboard,
sat down again without speaking. But he did not take his eyes off the
robber for an instant during this action, and now that they sat over
against each other face to face, he looked fixedly at him, with his
lips quivering so violently, and his face so altered by the emotions
which had mastered him, that the housebreaker involuntarily drew back
his chair, and surveyed him with a look of real affright.
“Wot now?” cried Sikes. “Wot do you look at a man so for?—Speak, will
you?”
The Jew raised his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in
the air, but his passion was so great, that the power of speech was for
the moment gone.
“Damme!” said Sikes, feeling in his breast with a look of alarm. “He’s
gone mad. I must look to myself here.”
“No, no,” rejoined Fagin, finding his voice. “It’s not—you’re not the
person, Bill. I’ve no—no fault to find with you.”
“Oh, you haven’t, haven’t you?” said Sikes, looking sternly at him, and
ostentatiously passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket. “That’s
lucky—for one of us. Which one that is, don’t matter.”
“I’ve got that to tell you, Bill,” said the Jew, drawing his chair
nearer, “will make you worse than me.”
“Aye?” returned the robber with an incredulous air. “Tell away. Look
sharp, or Nance will think I’m lost.”
“Lost!” cried Fagin. “She has pretty well settled that in her own mind
already.”
Sikes looked with an aspect of great perplexity into the Jew’s face,
and reading no satisfactory explanation of the riddle there, clenched
his coat collar in his huge hand, and shook him soundly.
“Speak, will you!” he said; “or if you don’t, it shall be for want of
breath. Open your mouth and say wot you’ve got to say in plain words.
Out with it, you thundering old cur, out with it.”
“Suppose that lad that’s lying there——” Fagin began.
Sikes turned round to where Noah was sleeping as if he had not
previously observed him. “Well,” he said, resuming his former position.
“Suppose that lad,” pursued the Jew, “was to peach—blow upon us
all—first seeking out the right folks for the purpose, and then having
a meeting with ’em in the street to paint our likenesses, describe
every mark that they might know us by, and the crib where we might be
most easily taken. Suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow
upon a plant we’ve all been in, more or less—of his own fancy; not
grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it
on bread and water,—but of his own fancy; to please his own taste;
stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and
peaching to them. Do you hear me?” cried the Jew, his eyes flashing
with rage. “Suppose he did all this, what then?”
“What then!” replied Sikes with a tremendous oath. “If he was left
alive till I came, I’d grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot
into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head.”
“What if _I_ did it!” cried the Jew almost in a yell. “_I_, that know
so much, and could hang so many besides myself!”
“I don’t know,” replied Sikes, clenching his teeth and turning white
at the mere suggestion. “I’d do something in the jail that ’ud get me
put in irons; and if I was tried along with you, I’d fall upon you with
them in the open court, and beat your brains out afore the people. I
should have such strength,” muttered the robber, poising his brawny
arm, “that I could smash your head as if a loaded waggon had gone over
it.”
“You would.”
“Would I!” said the housebreaker. “Try me.”
“If it was Charley, or the Dodger, or Bet, or——”
“I don’t care who,” replied Sikes impatiently. “Whoever it was, I’d
serve them the same.”
Fagin again looked hard at the robber, and motioning him to be silent,
stooped over the bed upon the floor, and shook the sleeper to rouse
him. Sikes leant forward in his chair, looking on with his hands
upon his knees as if wondering much what all this questioning and
preparation was to end in.
“Bolter, Bolter. Poor lad!” said Fagin, looking up with an expression
of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis.
“He’s tired—tired with watching for _her_ so long,—watching for
_her_, Bill.”
“Wot d’ye mean?” asked Sikes, drawing back.
The Jew made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him
into a sitting posture. When his assumed name had been repeated several
times, Noah rubbed his eyes, and giving a heavy yawn looked sleepily
about him.
“Tell me that again—once again, just for him to hear,” said the Jew,
pointing to Sikes as he spoke.
“Tell yer what?” asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly.
“That about—NANCY,” said the Jew, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as
if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. “You
followed her?”
“Yes.”
“To London Bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Where she met two people?”
“So she did.”
“A gentleman, and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before,
who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she
did—and to describe him, which she did—and to tell her what house it
was that we meet at and go to, which she did—and where it could be
best watched from, which she did—and what time the people went there,
which she did. She did all this. She told it all every word without a
threat, without a murmur—she did—didn’t she?” cried the Jew, half mad
with fury.
“All right,” replied Noah, scratching his head. “That’s just what it
was!”
“What did they say about last Sunday?” demanded the Jew.
“About last Sunday!” replied Noah, considering. “Why, I told yer that
before.”
“Again. Tell it again!” cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and
brandishing his other hand aloft as the foam flew from his lips.
“They asked her,” said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to
have a dawning perception who Sikes was, “they asked her why she didn’t
come last Sunday as she promised. She said she couldn’t—”
“Why—why?” interrupted the Jew triumphantly. “Tell him that.”
“Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told
them of before,” replied Noah.
“What more of him?” cried the Jew. “What more of the man she had told
them of before? Tell him that, tell him that.”
“Why, that she couldn’t very easily get out of doors unless he knew
where she was going to,” said Noah; “and so the first time she went to
see the lady, she—ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that
it did—she gave him a drink of laudanum.”
“Hell’s fire!” cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. “Let me
go!”
Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted
wildly and furiously up the stairs.
“Bill, Bill!” cried the Jew, following him hastily. “A word. Only a
word.”
The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was
unable to open the door, on which he was expending fruitless oaths and
violence when the Jew came panting up.
“Let me out,” said Sikes. “Don’t speak to me—it’s not safe. Let me
out, I say.”
“Hear me speak a word,” rejoined the Jew, laying his hand upon the
lock, “You won’t be——”
“Well,” replied the other.
“You won’t be—too—violent, Bill?” whined the Jew.
The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see
each other’s faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire
in the eyes of both which could not be mistaken.
“I mean,” said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now
useless, “not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too
bold.”
Sikes made no reply, but, pulling open the door of which the Jew had
turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets.
Without one pause or moment’s consideration, without once turning
his head to the right or left or raising his eyes to the sky or
lowering them to the ground but looking straight before him with
savage resolution, his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained
jaw seemed starting through his skin, the robber held on his headlong
course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his
own door. He opened it softly with a key, strode lightly up the stairs,
and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy
table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed.
The girl was lying half-dressed upon it. He had roused her from her
sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look.
“Get up,” said the man.
“It _is_ you, Bill!” said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at
his return.
“It is,” was the reply. “Get up.”
There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the
candlestick and hurled it under the grate. Seeing the faint light of
early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain.
“Let it be,” said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her. “There’s light
enough for wot I’ve got to do.”
“Bill,” said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, “why do you look like
that at me?”
The robber sat regarding her for a few seconds with dilated nostrils
and heaving breast, and then grasping her by the head and throat
dragged her into the middle of the room, and looking once towards the
door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth.
“Bill, Bill—” gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength of mortal
fear,—“I—I won’t scream or cry—not once—hear me—speak to me—tell
me what I have done.”
“You know, you she devil!” returned the robber, suppressing his breath.
“You were watched to-night; every word you said was heard.”
“Then spare my life for the love of Heaven as I spared yours,” rejoined
the girl, clinging to him. “Bill, dear Bill, you cannot have the heart
to kill me. Oh! think of all I have given up only this one night for
you. You _shall_ have time to think, and save yourself this crime; I
will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off. Bill, Bill, for dear
God’s sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spill my blood. I
have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have.”
The man struggled violently to release his arms, but those of the girl
were clasped round his, and tear her as he would he could not tear them
away.
“Bill,” cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast,
“the gentleman and that dear lady told me to-night of a home in some
foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace. Let
me see them again, and beg them on my knees to show the same mercy
and goodness to you, and let us both leave this dreadful place, and
far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived except in
prayers, and never see each other more. It is never too late to repent.
They told me so—I feel it now—but we must have time—a little, little
time!”
The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty
of immediate detection if he fired flashed across his mind even in the
midst of his fury, and he beat it twice with all the force he could
summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own.
She staggered and fell, nearly blinded with the blood that rained down
from a deep gash in her forehead, but raising herself with difficulty
on her knees drew from her bosom a white handkerchief—Rose Maylie’s
own—and holding it up in her folded hands as high towards Heaven as
her feeble strength would let her, breathed one prayer for mercy to her
Maker.
It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward
to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy
club and struck her down.