The Alcove on the Bridge.—Gray’s Speech to Ada.—The Flight.—The
Hunt.—The Last Refuge.
London was not so thronged with passengers at the period of our tale as
it is now, and Gray stood with Ada several moments at the corner of
Westminster-bridge, without more than three persons passing, and those
at intervals apart from each other.
Gray appeared to be in deep thought during this time, and then taking
Ada by the arm, he said in a trembling voice,—
“This way, this way,” and led her to the bridge.
Ada made no resistance, but suffered herself to be conducted into one
of the little alcoves which now exist. Then, after a pause, Jacob Gray
spoke to her in a low, earnest tone, to the following purport:—
“Ada, the time is now fast approaching when you will be free—free in
action as in thought, and with the means of giving to every thought,
however wayward or expensive, the immediate aspect of reality. You will
be guided implicitly by me, Ada, for the space of about one month, and
no longer—then all that I promise will be fulfilled, and you will be
happy. You may then forget Jacob Gray, for you will see him no more. In
another country I will spend the remainder of my life. What I am about
to do now is, to seek in the very heart of this populous city, a
temporary abode for you and myself. I am tired of solitudes and lonely
places. Ada, you must for that brief month assume in all appearance the
character of my daughter.”
Ada shuddered, and shrank back as far as she possibly could into the
alcove, for Gray, in the earnestness of his discourse, had brought his
face in very close proximity to hers.
“For your own sake, as well as for mine,” he continued, “you must pass
as a child of mine. When I am gone, you may repudiate the relationship
as quickly as you may think proper.”
Jacob Gray then paused as if awaiting the answer of Ada, but to his
great surprise and aggravation, she preserved the same unbroken silence
which she had dictated to herself since the murder at the lone house.
“You will not answer me,” said Gray, with bitterness. “Well, be it so.
Let no words pass between us. I can construe your silence—you feel that
you must obey me, and yet you cannot bring your nature to give me one
word of acquiescence. ’Tis as well, Ada—’tis as well. Our conversations
have never been so satisfactory that I should wish to urge their
continuance. You may preserve your silence, but you must obey me.
Before this time I have been placed in desperate straits, and have
reflected upon desperate remedies. Now, Ada, remember that if you
betray me, or even leave me, until the time I shall please to appoint,
you shall die. Remember, young, beautiful as you are, you shall die.”
Again Gray paused with the hope that Ada would speak, for although he
affected to despise it, the silence of the young girl was an annoyance
to him of the first magnitude.
His hope, however, was futile. She spoke not.
“Come, follow me,” cried Gray, suddenly. “Here, place your arm in mine.”
He attempted to draw her arm within his as he spoke, but Ada drew back
so firmly and resolutely, that Gray saw she would not walk with him in
such apparent amity.
“As you please,” he said, “so that you follow me. Come on—come on.”
Ada stepped from the alcove onto the bridge, and then Gray paused a
moment to see if he was observed, and being satisfied that he was not,
he drew aside the collar of his cloak and showed Ada the bright barrel
of a pistol, to which he pointed, saying,—
“Remember—death, sudden, painful, and violent on the one hand, and on
the other, after a short month, unbounded wealth, enjoyment, and
delight. Come on—come on.”
Side by side, the ill-assorted pair walked in the direction of
Parliament-street, it being Gray’s intention to pass through
Westminster, and proceed towards the densely populated district north
of the Strand, there to seek for a temporary lodging in which he and
Ada as his daughter, could remain until he had perfected his
arrangements for his own escape, and the utter destruction of Learmont
and Britton.
Gray had calculated his chances and position well. He stood as free as
ever from any attempt against his life by Learmont or the savage smith.
Ada, even if she should suddenly leave him, scarcely knew enough to be
thoroughly dangerous. Sir Francis Hartleton had but an indistinct
knowledge of his person, and even should he meet him in the public
streets, he could hardly hit upon him as being the man who had merely
flashed across his eyes for a moment. Besides, it was possible to make
sufficient alterations in his personal appearance to deceive those who
were not very well acquainted with his general aspect and appearance.
Then he need not go from home above four times, perhaps, in that whole
month, even provided he remained so long in London, and on those
occasions it would only be to creep cautiously from his own place of
abode to Learmont’s house and back again, so that the risk would be but
small of meeting the magistrate or Albert Seyton, who were the only two
persons at all interested in his capture.
His threats to Ada that he would take her life upon any attempt of hers
to escape, were perfectly insincere. To Ada and her existence he clung
as to his only hope of mercy, if by some untoward circumstance he
should be taken, as well as for his only means of being thoroughly and
entirely revenged upon Learmont.
Upon the whole, then, Jacob Gray, as he walked down Parliament-street,
in the dim, uncertain light from the oil lamps of the period, and saw
that Ada followed him slowly, rather congratulated himself upon his
extreme cunning and the good position for working out all his darling
projects, both of avarice and revenge, in which he was placed.
“There is an old proverb,” he muttered, “which says, ‘the nearer to
church, the further from Heaven,’ and I have read somewhere a fable of
a hunted hare finding a secure, because an unsuspected, place of refuge
in a dog-kennel. Upon that principal will I secrete myself for one
short month in some place densely inhabited; where two persons make but
an insignificant item in the great mass that surrounds them, will I
seek security, and then my revenge—my deep revenge!”
But few passengers were in Parliament-street; the quantity of persons,
however, sensibly increased as they approached Whitehall, and from
Charing-cross the lights were just glancing when Ada suddenly paused,
and Gray, on the impulse of the moment, got two or three paces in
advance of her. There were two persons conversing, about where
Scotland-yard stands, and laughing carelessly, while several more
people were rapidly approaching from Charing-cross.
Gray was sensible in a moment that Ada had stopped, and he hurried
immediately to see what were her intentions.
As he did so, Ada broke the long silence she had maintained by suddenly
exclaiming, in a voice that arrested every passenger, and made the
blood retreat with a frightful gush to the heart of Jacob Gray.
“Help! Help! Seize him. He is a murderer—a murderer!—Help! Help! Seize
the murderer!”
For one moment all sense of perception seemed to have left Gray, so
thoroughly unexpected was such an act on the part of Ada, and it was
well for him that those who were around for about the same space of
time remained in a similar undecided and bewildered state, as people do
always on any very sudden occasion for instant action.
Ada stood pointing with one trembling finger at Gray, while her pale
face and long black hair, combined with her rare beauty, made her look
like one inspired.
“The murderer!” she again cried, and her voice seemed to break the
spell which kept both Gray and the chance passengers paralysed.
With a cry of terror, Jacob Gray turned and fled towards Charing-cross.
Ada’s feelings had been wrought up to too high a pitch of excitement.
She had felt it to be her duty to denounce the murderer, and while that
duty remained to be done, the consciousness that upon her it devolved,
had nerved her to the task, and supported her hitherto—now, however,
the words were spoken. At what she supposed the risk of her life, she
had announced the crime of Jacob Gray. The revulsion of feeling was too
much, and a bystander, who saw her stagger, was just in time to catch
her as she fainted, and would otherwise have fallen to the ground.
The two persons who had been talking and laughing together at the
moment of Ada’s first exclamation, did not seem disposed to let the
accused man get off so easily as he appeared upon the point of doing.
They raised the cry so awful in the ear of a fugitive through the
streets of London, “Stop him! Stop him!” And they both started after
Jacob Gray at full speed.
Had Gray, when he turned the corner of Northumberland-house, then
walked quietly, like an ordinary passenger, the chances were that he
would have escaped; but, in his terror, he flew rather than ran up the
Strand, at once pointing himself out to all as the one pursued, and
tempting every person who had time or inclination to join the exciting
chase.
The words, “Stop him!” sounded in his ears, and he bounded forward as
he heard them, with another cry and a speed that, while it made it very
hazardous for every one to oppose him, yet increased the ardour of the
pursuit.
In the course of a few seconds, fifty persons had joined the chase, and
yells and shouts came upon Gray’s affrighted ears.
With compressed lips and a face as livid as that of a corpse, he rushed
on without the smallest idea of where he was going.
“For my life—for my life,” he gasped, and each cry behind him affected
him like a shock of electricity, and caused him to give another bound
forward in all the wildness of despair.
Of the crowd now that followed Gray, not one knew who he was, of what
he was accused, or why he was thus hunted, like a wild annual, through
the streets. One joined in the cry because he saw others engaged in it.
The two young men who had first raised the chase were a long way off,
for no one could keep up with the frantic speed of the nearly maddened
Gray. Those who followed him the closest were those who had joined the
hunt en route; although, to the fugitive’s excited imagination, he
seemed to be on the point of being overtaken by harder runners than
himself.
Shouts, cries, hootings, groans, and every wild and demoniac noise of
which the human animal is capable, were uttered by the mob, which kept
momentarily increasing as each alley, court, or street, sent forth its
tribute of numbers to the stream that roared, whooped, hurried, and
raced along the Strand.
Some began now to throw missiles of all kinds after Gray. Stones and
mud showered upon him, and he felt faint and neatly exhausted, as he
saw at some distance before him a man apparently intent upon stopping
him.
Little, however, did he who thought to capture Gray reflect upon the
shock he would receive from the speed of the hunted man. As Gray
approached him he swerved, more involuntarily than designedly, and
coming against the man rather obliquely, he shot him into the roadway
with an impetus that sent him rolling over and over in the mud, as if
he had been discharged from a cannon. To Gray the shock was severe, but
it did not take him off his feet, and the circumstance caused some
little diversion in his favour than otherwise; for the mob first
trampled upon the prostrate man, and then some fell over him.
After this, none were so bold as to stand in the way of a man who was
rushing along with so terrible a speed; and Jacob Gray, reeling,
panting, his lips running with blood, as he had bitten them in his
agony, arrived at Somerset-house.
Just beyond the stone front was a small court, and towards this
temporary place of refuge from the high street Gray tottered, spinning
round and round, like a drunken man.
A light, agile man, who had joined the chase by the Adelphi, and who
had kept very close upon Gray, now, with a shout of triumph, made a
rush forward, and grappled with him at the mouth of the little court.
The touch seemed like magic to revive all the fainting energies of
Jacob Gray, and he turned and grappled his enemy by the throat with
fearful vehemence.
The court descended from the street by a flight of stone steps, and in
the next instant with a shriek from the man, and a wild cry from Gray,
the pursuer and pursued rolled down the stone descent, struggling with
each other for life or death.