THE FLIGHT OF SIKES.
OF all bad deeds that under cover of the darkness had been committed
within wide London’s bounds since night hung over it, that was the
worst. Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning
air, that was the foulest and most cruel.
The sun,—the bright sun, that brings back not light alone, but new
life and hope and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in
clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended
window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal
ray. It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. It did. He
tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. If the sight had been a
ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it now in all that brilliant
light!
He had not moved: he had been afraid to stir. There had been a moan and
motion of the hand; and with terror added to hate he had struck and
struck again. Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy
the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring
upwards as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered
and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling. He had plucked it off again.
And there was the body—mere flesh and blood, no more—but _such_
flesh, and _such_ blood!
He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it. There
was human hair upon the end which blazed and shrunk into a light
cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney. Even that
frightened him, sturdy as he was, but he held the weapon till it broke,
and then piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulder into ashes.
He washed himself and rubbed his clothes; there were spots that would
not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them. How those
stains were dispersed about the room! The very feet of the dog were
bloody.
All this time he had never once turned his back upon the corpse; no,
not for a moment. Such preparations completed, he moved backwards
towards the door, dragging the dog with him, lest he should carry out
new evidences of the crime into the streets. He shut the door softly,
locked it, took the key, and left the house.
He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that nothing
was visible from the outside. There was the curtain still drawn, which
she would have opened to admit the light she never saw again. It lay
nearly under there. _He_ knew that. God, how the sun poured down upon
the very spot!
The glance was instantaneous. It was a relief to have got free of the
room. He whistled on the dog, and walked rapidly away.
He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate on which
stands the stone in honour of Whittington; turned down to Highgate
Hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck off to
the right again almost as soon as he began to descend it, and taking
the foot path across the fields, skirted Caen Wood, and so came out
on Hampstead Heath. Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Health, he
mounted the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins the
villages of Hampstead and Highgate, made along the remaining portion of
the heath to the fields at North End, in one of which he laid himself
down under a hedge and slept.
Soon he was up again, and away,—not far into the country, but back
towards London by the high-road—then back again—then over another
part of the same ground as he had already traversed—then wandering up
and down in fields and lying on ditches’ brinks to rest, and starting
up to make for some other spot and do the same, and ramble on again.
Where could he go to, that was near and not too public, to get some
meat and drink? Hendon. That was a good place, not far off, and out of
most people’s way. Thither he directed his steps,—running sometimes,
and sometimes, with a strange perversity, loitering at a snail’s pace,
or stopping altogether and idly breaking the hedges with his stick.
But when he got there, all the people he met—the very children at the
doors—seemed to view him with suspicion. Back he turned again, without
the courage to purchase bit or drop, though he had tasted no food for
many hours; and once more he lingered on the Heath, uncertain where to
go.
He wandered over miles and miles of ground and still came back to the
old place; morning and noon had passed, and the day was on the wane,
and still he rambled to and fro, and up and down, and round and round,
and still lingered about the same spot. At last he got away, and shaped
his course for Hatfield.
It was nine o’clock at night when the man quite tired out, and the
dog limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down
the hill by the church of the quiet village, and plodding along the
little street crept into a small public-house, whose scanty light had
guided them to the spot. There was a fire in the tap-room, and some
country-labourers were drinking before it. They made room for the
stranger, but he sat down in the furthest corner, and ate and drank
alone, or rather with his dog, to whom he cast a morsel of food from
time to time.
The conversation of the men assembled here turned upon the neighbouring
land and farmers, and when those topics were exhausted, upon the age of
some old man who had been buried on the previous Sunday; the young men
present considering him very old, and the old men present declaring him
to have been quite young—not older, one white-haired grandfather said,
than he was—with ten or fifteen year of life in him at least—if he
had taken care; if he had taken care.
There was nothing to attract attention or excite alarm in this. The
robber, after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed in his
corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened by the
noisy entrance of a new-comer.
This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who
travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, strops, razors,
washballs, harness-paste, medicines for dogs and horses, cheap
perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case
slung to his back. His entrance was the signal for various homely jokes
with the countrymen, which slackened not until he had made his supper,
and opened his box of treasures, when he ingeniously contrived to unite
business with amusement.
“And what be that stoof—good to eat, Harry?” asked a grinning
countryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner.
“This,” said the fellow, producing one, “this is the infallible and
invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt,
mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen,
cambric, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or
woollen stuff. Wine stains, fruit stains, beer stains, water stains,
paint stains, pitch stains, any stains—all come out at one rub with
the infallible and invaluable composition. If a lady stains her honour,
she has only need to swallow one cake and she’s cured at once—for it’s
poison. If a gentleman wants to prove his, he has only need to bolt
one little square, and he has put it beyond question—for it’s quite
as satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a great deal nastier in the
flavour, consequently the more credit in taking it. One penny a square.
With all these virtues, one penny a square.”
There were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners plainly
hesitated. The vender observing this, increased in loquacity.
“It’s all bought up as fast as it can be made,” said the fellow. “There
are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic battery
always a-working upon it, and they can’t make it fast enough, though
the men work so hard that they die off, and the widows is pensioned
directly with twenty pound a-year for each of the children, and a
premium of fifty for twins. One penny a square—two halfpence is all
the same, and four farthings is received with joy. One penny a-square.
Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains,
pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains—here is a stain upon the hat of
a gentleman in company that I’ll take clean out before he can order me
a pint of ale.”
“Hah!” cried Sikes starting up. “Give that back.”
“I’ll take it clean out, sir,” replied the man, winking to the company,
“before you can come across the room to get it. Gentlemen all, observe
the dark stain upon this gentleman’s hat, no wider than a shilling, but
thicker than a half-crown. Whether it is a wine-stain, fruit-stain,
beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain, pitch-stain, mud-stain, or
blood-stain—”
The man got no farther, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation overthrew
the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the house.
With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had fastened
upon him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding that he was
not followed, and that they most probably considered him some drunken
sullen fellow, turned back up the town, and getting out of the glare of
the lamps of a stage-coach that was standing in the street, was walking
past, when he recognised the mail from London, and saw that it was
standing at the little post-office. He almost knew what was to come,
but he crossed over and listened.
The guard was standing at the door waiting for the letter-bag. A man
dressed like a gamekeeper came up at the moment, and he handed him a
basket which lay ready on the pavement.
“That’s for your people,” said the guard. “Now, look alive in there,
will you.”
“Damn that ’ere bag, it warn’t ready night afore last: this won’t do,
you know.”
“Anything new up in town, Ben?” asked the gamekeeper, drawing back to
the window-shutters, the better to admire the horses.
“No, nothing that I knows on,” replied the man, pulling on his gloves.
“Corn’s up a little. I heerd talk of a murder, too, down Spitalfields
way, but I don’t reckon much upon it.”
“Oh, that’s quite true,” said a gentleman inside, who was looking out
of the window. “And a very dreadful murder it was.”
“Was it, sir?” rejoined the guard, touching his hat. “Man or woman,
pray, sir?”
“A woman,” replied the gentleman. “It is supposed——”
“Now, Ben,” cried the coachman impatiently.
“Damn that ’ere bag,” said the guard; “are you gone to sleep in there?”
“Coming,” cried the office-keeper, running out.
“Coming,” growled the guard. “Ah, and so’s the young ’ooman of property
that’s going to take a fancy to me, but I don’t know when. Here, give
hold. All ri—ight!”
The horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was gone.
Sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by what he
had just heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a doubt where
to go. At length he went back again, and took the road which leads from
Hatfield to St. Albans.
He went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and plunged
further and further into the solitude and darkness of the road, he
felt a dread and awe creeping upon him which shook him to the core.
Every object before him, substance or shadow, still or moving, took
the semblance of some fearful thing; but these fears were nothing
compared to the sense that haunted him of that morning’s ghastly
figure following at his heels. He could trace its shadow in the gloom,
supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn
it seemed to stalk along. He could hear its garments rustling in the
leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with that last low cry. If
he stopped, it did the same. If he ran, it followed—not running too,
that would have been a relief, but like a corpse endowed with the mere
machinery of life, and borne upon one slow melancholy wind that never
rose or fell.
At times he turned with desperate determination, resolved to beat this
phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose from his
head, and his blood stood still; for it had turned with him and was
behind him then. He had kept it before him that morning, but it was
behind him now—always. He leant his back against a bank, and felt that
it stood above him, visibly out against the cold night-sky. He threw
himself upon the road—on his back upon the road. At his head it stood,
silent, erect, and still—a living grave-stone with its epitaph in
blood.
Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence
must sleep. There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long
minute of that agony of fear.
There was a shed in a field he passed that offered shelter for the
night. Before the door were three tall poplar trees, which made it very
dark within, and the wind moaned through them with a dismal wail. He
_could not_ walk on till daylight came again, and here he stretched
himself close to the wall—to undergo new torture.
For now a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible
than that from which he had escaped. Those widely staring eyes, so
lustreless and so glassy, that he had better borne to see than think
upon, appeared in the midst of the darkness; light in themselves, but
giving light to nothing. There were but two, but they were everywhere.
If he shut out the sight, there came the room with every well-known
object—some, indeed, that he would have forgotten if he had gone over
its contents from memory—each in its accustomed place. The body was in
_its_ place, and its eyes were as he saw them when he stole away. He
got up and rushed into the field without. The figure was behind him.
He re-entered the shed and shrunk down once more. The eyes were there
before he had lain himself along.
And here he remained in such terror as none but he can know, trembling
in every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every pore, when
suddenly there arose upon the night-wind the noise of distant shouting,
and the roar of voices mingled in alarm and wonder. Any sound of men in
that lonely place, even though it conveyed a real cause of alarm, was
something to him. He regained his strength and energy at the prospect
of personal danger, and springing to his feet rushed into the open air.
The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers of
sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting
the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the
direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled
the roar, and he could hear the cry of Fire mingled with the ringing of
an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as
they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed
by food. The noise increased as he looked. There were people there—men
and women—light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He darted
onward—straight, headlong—dashing through brier and brake and leaping
gate and fence as madly as the dog who careered with loud and sounding
bark before him.
He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing to
and fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the
stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and
others coming laden from the burning pile amidst a shower of falling
sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where
doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire;
walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and
iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and children
shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers.
The clanking of the engine-pumps and the spirting and hissing of the
water as it fell upon the blazing wood added to the tremendous roar. He
shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself
plunged into the thickest of the throng.
Hither and thither he dived that night—now working at the pumps, and
now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage
himself wherever noise and men were thickest. Up and down the ladders,
upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with
his weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones,—in every part
of that great fire was he, but he bore a charmed life, and had neither
scratch nor bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned
again and only smoke and blackened ruins remained.
This mad excitement over, there returned with tenfold force the
dreadful consciousness of his crime. He looked suspiciously about him,
for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared to be the subject
of their talk. The dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and
they drew off stealthily together. He passed near an engine where some
men were seated, and they called to him to share in their refreshment.
He took some bread and meat; and as he drank a draught of beer, heard
the firemen, who were from London, talking about the murder. “He has
gone to Birmingham, they say,” said one: “but they’ll have him yet,
for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow night there’ll be a cry all
through the country.”
[Illustration: _Sikes attempting to destroy his dog._]
He hurried off and walked till he almost dropped upon the ground; then
lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and uneasy, sleep. He
wandered on again, irresolute and undecided, and oppressed with the
fear of another solitary night.
Suddenly he took the desperate resolution of going back to London.
“There’s somebody to speak to there, at all events,” he thought. “A
good hiding-place, too. They’ll never expect to nab me there after this
country scent. Why can’t I lay by for a week or so, and forcing blunt
from Fagin get abroad to France! Dam’me, I’ll risk it.”
He acted upon this impulse without delay, and choosing the least
frequented roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed
within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk by
a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of it which he had
fixed on for his destination.
The dog, though,—if any descriptions of him were out, it would not be
forgotten that the dog was missing and had probably gone with him.
This might lead to his apprehension as he passed along the streets. He
resolved to drown him, and walked on looking about for a pond; picking
up a heavy stone and tying it to his handkerchief as he went.
The animal looked up into his master’s face while these preparations
were making—and, whether his instinct apprehended something of
their purpose, or the robber’s sidelong look at him was sterner than
ordinary—skulked a little further in the rear than usual, and cowered
as he came more slowly along. When his master halted at the brink of a
pool and looked round to call him, he stopped outright.
“Do you hear me call ‘come here?’” cried Sikes whistling.
The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped
to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and
started back.
“Come back,” said the robber, stamping on the ground. The dog wagged
his tail, but moved not. Here Sikes made a running noose and called
him again.
The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, turned and scoured away
at his hardest speed.
The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the
expectation that he would return. But no dog appeared, and he resumed
his journey.