Chapter: The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as two figures
emerged on London Bridge.  One, which advanced with a swift and rapid
step, was that of a woman who looked eagerly about her as though in
quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man, who
slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and, at some distance,
accommodated his pace to hers:  stopping when she stopped:  and as she
moved again, creeping stealthily on:  but never allowing himself, in
the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps.  Thus, they
crossed the bridge, from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore, when the
woman, apparently disappointed in her anxious scrutiny of the
foot-passengers, turned back.  The movement was sudden; but he who
watched her, was not thrown off his guard by it; for, shrinking into
one of the recesses which surmount the piers of the bridge, and leaning
over the parapet the better to conceal his figure, he suffered her to
pass on the opposite pavement. When she was about the same distance in
advance as she had been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed
her again. At nearly the centre of the bridge, she stopped.  The man
stopped too.

It was a very dark night.  The day had been unfavourable, and at that
hour and place there were few people stirring. Such as there were,
hurried quickly past:  very possibly without seeing, but certainly
without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept her in view.
Their appearance was not calculated to attract the importunate regards
of such of London's destitute population, as chanced to take their way
over the bridge that night in search of some cold arch or doorless
hovel wherein to lay their heads; they stood there in silence:  neither
speaking nor spoken to, by any one who passed.

A mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires that
burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharfs, and
rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the banks.
The old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose heavy and dull
from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned sternly upon water
too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes. The tower of old
Saint Saviour's Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the
giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom; but the
forest of shipping below bridge, and the thickly scattered spires of
churches above, were nearly all hidden from sight.

The girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro--closely watched
meanwhile by her hidden observer--when the heavy bell of St. Paul's
tolled for the death of another day.  Midnight had come upon the
crowded city.  The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse:
the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face
of the corpse and the calm sleep of the child:  midnight was upon them
all.

The hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady, accompanied by
a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a hackney-carriage within a
short distance of the bridge, and, having dismissed the vehicle, walked
straight towards it.  They had scarcely set foot upon its pavement,
when the girl started, and immediately made towards them.

They walked onward, looking about them with the air of persons who
entertained some very slight expectation which had little chance of
being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new associate.
They halted with an exclamation of surprise, but suppressed it
immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman came close
up--brushed against them, indeed--at that precise moment.

'Not here,' said Nancy hurriedly, 'I am afraid to speak to you here.
Come away--out of the public road--down the steps yonder!'

As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the direction
in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked round, and
roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for, passed on.

The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the
Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as Saint Saviour's
Church, form a landing-stairs from the river.  To this spot, the man
bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and after
a moment's survey of the place, he began to descend.

These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights.
Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the
left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the Thames.
At this point the lower steps widen:  so that a person turning that
angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs
who chance to be above him, if only a step. The countryman looked
hastily round, when he reached this point; and as there seemed no
better place of concealment, and, the tide being out, there was plenty
of room, he slipped aside, with his back to the pilaster, and there
waited:  pretty certain that they would come no lower, and that even if
he could not hear what was said, he could follow them again, with
safety.

So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the
spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what he
had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter up for
lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far above, or
had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their mysterious
conversation.  He was on the point of emerging from his hiding-place,
and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound of footsteps, and
directly afterwards of voices almost close at his ear.

He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely
breathing, listened attentively.

'This is far enough,' said a voice, which was evidently that of the
gentleman.  'I will not suffer the young lady to go any farther.  Many
people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far, but
you see I am willing to humour you.'

'To humour me!' cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed.
'You're considerate, indeed, sir.  To humour me!  Well, well, it's no
matter.'

'Why, for what,' said the gentleman in a kinder tone, 'for what purpose
can you have brought us to this strange place?  Why not have let me
speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is something
stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal hole?'

'I told you before,' replied Nancy, 'that I was afraid to speak to you
there.  I don't know why it is,' said the girl, shuddering, 'but I have
such a fear and dread upon me to-night that I can hardly stand.'

'A fear of what?' asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her.

'I scarcely know of what,' replied the girl.  'I wish I did. Horrible
thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that
has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all day.  I was
reading a book to-night, to wile the time away, and the same things
came into the print.'

'Imagination,' said the gentleman, soothing her.

'No imagination,' replied the girl in a hoarse voice. 'I'll swear I saw
"coffin" written in every page of the book in large black
letters,--aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets
to-night.'

'There is nothing unusual in that,' said the gentleman. 'They have
passed me often.'

'_Real ones_,' rejoined the girl.  'This was not.'

There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the
concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words, and
the blood chilled within him.  He had never experienced a greater
relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged
her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of such
fearful fancies.

'Speak to her kindly,' said the young lady to her companion. 'Poor
creature!  She seems to need it.'

'Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me
as I am to-night, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the
girl.  'Oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be God's own folks
as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth,
and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud
instead of so much humbler?'

'Ah!' said the gentleman.  'A Turk turns his face, after washing it
well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after
giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles
off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven.
Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!'

These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were
perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to recover
herself.  The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to her.

'You were not here last Sunday night,' he said.

'I couldn't come,' replied Nancy; 'I was kept by force.'

'By whom?'

'Him that I told the young lady of before.'

'You were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on
the subject which has brought us here to-night, I hope?' asked the old
gentleman.

'No,' replied the girl, shaking her head.  'It's not very easy for me
to leave him unless he knows why; I couldn't give him a drink of
laudanum before I came away.'

'Did he awake before you returned?' inquired the gentleman.

'No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.'

'Good,' said the gentleman.  'Now listen to me.'

'I am ready,' replied the girl, as he paused for a moment.

'This young lady,' the gentleman began, 'has communicated to me, and to
some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her nearly
a fortnight since.  I confess to you that I had doubts, at first,
whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I firmly believe
you are.'

'I am,' said the girl earnestly.

'I repeat that I firmly believe it.  To prove to you that I am disposed
to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose to extort the
secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man Monks.  But
if--if--' said the gentleman, 'he cannot be secured, or, if secured,
cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the Jew.'

'Fagin,' cried the girl, recoiling.

'That man must be delivered up by you,' said the gentleman.

'I will not do it!  I will never do it!' replied the girl. 'Devil that
he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never do that.'

'You will not?' said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for this
answer.

'Never!' returned the girl.

'Tell me why?'

'For one reason,' rejoined the girl firmly, 'for one reason, that the
lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have her
promise:  and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he has
led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have kept the
same courses together, and I'll not turn upon them, who might--any of
them--have turned upon me, but didn't, bad as they are.'

'Then,' said the gentleman, quickly, as if this had been the point he
had been aiming to attain; 'put Monks into my hands, and leave him to
me to deal with.'

'What if he turns against the others?'

'I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him,
there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in Oliver's
little history which it would be painful to drag before the public eye,
and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.'

'And if it is not?' suggested the girl.

'Then,' pursued the gentleman, 'this Fagin shall not be brought to
justice without your consent.  In such a case I could show you reasons,
I think, which would induce you to yield it.'

'Have I the lady's promise for that?' asked the girl.

'You have,' replied Rose.  'My true and faithful pledge.'

'Monks would never learn how you knew what you do?' said the girl,
after a short pause.

'Never,' replied the gentleman.  'The intelligence should be brought to
bear upon him, that he could never even guess.'

'I have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,' said the
girl after another interval of silence, 'but I will take your words.'

After receiving an assurance from both, that she might safely do so,
she proceeded in a voice so low that it was often difficult for the
listener to discover even the purport of what she said, to describe, by
name and situation, the public-house whence she had been followed that
night.  From the manner in which she occasionally paused, it appeared
as if the gentleman were making some hasty notes of the information she
communicated.  When she had thoroughly explained the localities of the
place, the best position from which to watch it without exciting
observation, and the night and hour on which Monks was most in the
habit of frequenting it, she seemed to consider for a few moments, for
the purpose of recalling his features and appearances more forcibly to
her recollection.

'He is tall,' said the girl, 'and a strongly made man, but not stout;
he has a lurking walk; and as he walks, constantly looks over his
shoulder, first on one side, and then on the other. Don't forget that,
for his eyes are sunk in his head so much deeper than any other man's,
that you might almost tell him by that alone.  His face is dark, like
his hair and eyes; and, although he can't be more than six or eight and
twenty, withered and haggard. His lips are often discoloured and
disfigured with the marks of teeth; for he has desperate fits, and
sometimes even bites his hands and covers them with wounds--why did you
start?' said the girl, stopping suddenly.

The gentleman replied, in a hurried manner, that he was not conscious
of having done so, and begged her to proceed.

'Part of this,' said the girl, 'I have drawn out from other people at
the house I tell you of, for I have only seen him twice, and both times
he was covered up in a large cloak.  I think that's all I can give you
to know him by.  Stay though,' she added.  'Upon his throat:  so high
that you can see a part of it below his neckerchief when he turns his
face:  there is--'

'A broad red mark, like a burn or scald?' cried the gentleman.

'How's this?' said the girl.  'You know him!'

The young lady uttered a cry of surprise, and for a few moments they
were so still that the listener could distinctly hear them breathe.

'I think I do,' said the gentleman, breaking silence.  'I should by
your description.  We shall see.  Many people are singularly like each
other.  It may not be the same.'

As he expressed himself to this effect, with assumed carelessness, he
took a step or two nearer the concealed spy, as the latter could tell
from the distinctness with which he heard him mutter, 'It must be he!'

'Now,' he said, returning:  so it seemed by the sound:  to the spot
where he had stood before, 'you have given us most valuable assistance,
young woman, and I wish you to be the better for it. What can I do to
serve you?'

'Nothing,' replied Nancy.

'You will not persist in saying that,' rejoined the gentleman, with a
voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much harder
and more obdurate heart. 'Think now.  Tell me.'

'Nothing, sir,' rejoined the girl, weeping.  'You can do nothing to
help me.  I am past all hope, indeed.'

'You put yourself beyond its pale,' said the gentleman. 'The past has
been a dreary waste with you, of youthful energies mis-spent, and such
priceless treasures lavished, as the Creator bestows but once and never
grants again, but, for the future, you may hope. I do not say that it
is in our power to offer you peace of heart and mind, for that must
come as you seek it; but a quiet asylum, either in England, or, if you
fear to remain here, in some foreign country, it is not only within the
compass of our ability but our most anxious wish to secure you. Before
the dawn of morning, before this river wakes to the first glimpse of
day-light, you shall be placed as entirely beyond the reach of your
former associates, and leave as utter an absence of all trace behind
you, as if you were to disappear from the earth this moment.  Come!  I
would not have you go back to exchange one word with any old companion,
or take one look at any old haunt, or breathe the very air which is
pestilence and death to you.  Quit them all, while there is time and
opportunity!'

'She will be persuaded now,' cried the young lady.  'She hesitates, I
am sure.'

'I fear not, my dear,' said the gentleman.

'No sir, I do not,' replied the girl, after a short struggle.  'I am
chained to my old life.  I loathe and hate it now, but I cannot leave
it.  I must have gone too far to turn back,--and yet I don't know, for
if you had spoken to me so, some time ago, I should have laughed it
off.  But,' she said, looking hastily round, 'this fear comes over me
again.  I must go home.'

'Home!' repeated the young lady, with great stress upon the word.

'Home, lady,' rejoined the girl.  'To such a home as I have raised for
myself with the work of my whole life.  Let us part. I shall be watched
or seen.  Go!  Go!  If I have done you any service all I ask is, that
you leave me, and let me go my way alone.'

'It is useless,' said the gentleman, with a sigh.  'We compromise her
safety, perhaps, by staying here.  We may have detained her longer than
she expected already.'

'Yes, yes,' urged the girl. 'You have.'

'What,' cried the young lady, 'can be the end of this poor creature's
life!'

'What!' repeated the girl.  'Look before you, lady.  Look at that dark
water.  How many times do you read of such as I who spring into the
tide, and leave no living thing, to care for, or bewail them.  It may
be years hence, or it may be only months, but I shall come to that at
last.'

'Do not speak thus, pray,' returned the young lady, sobbing.

'It will never reach your ears, dear lady, and God forbid such horrors
should!' replied the girl.  'Good-night, good-night!'

The gentleman turned away.

'This purse,' cried the young lady.  'Take it for my sake, that you may
have some resource in an hour of need and trouble.'

'No!' replied the girl.  'I have not done this for money.  Let me have
that to think of.  And yet--give me something that you have worn:  I
should like to have something--no, no, not a ring--your gloves or
handkerchief--anything that I can keep, as having belonged to you,
sweet lady.  There.  Bless you!  God bless you. Good-night, good-night!'

The violent agitation of the girl, and the apprehension of some
discovery which would subject her to ill-usage and violence, seemed to
determine the gentleman to leave her, as she requested.

The sound of retreating footsteps were audible and the voices ceased.

The two figures of the young lady and her companion soon afterwards
appeared upon the bridge.  They stopped at the summit of the stairs.

'Hark!' cried the young lady, listening.  'Did she call!  I thought I
heard her voice.'

'No, my love,' replied Mr. Brownlow, looking sadly back. 'She has not
moved, and will not till we are gone.'

Rose Maylie lingered, but the old gentleman drew her arm through his,
and led her, with gentle force, away.  As they disappeared, the girl
sunk down nearly at her full length upon one of the stone stairs, and
vented the anguish of her heart in bitter tears.

After a time she arose, and with feeble and tottering steps ascended
the street.  The astonished listener remained motionless on his post
for some minutes afterwards, and having ascertained, with many cautious
glances round him, that he was again alone, crept slowly from his
hiding-place, and returned, stealthily and in the shade of the wall, in
the same manner as he had descended.

Peeping out, more than once, when he reached the top, to make sure that
he was unobserved, Noah Claypole darted away at his utmost speed, and
made for the Jew's house as fast as his legs would carry him.



It was nearly two hours before day-break; 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 sounds appear to slumber, and
profligacy and riot have staggered home to dream; it was at this still
and silent hour, that Fagin sat watching in his old lair, with face so
distorted and pale, and eyes so red and blood-shot, 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 hit 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, and
then brought them back again to the candle; which with a 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; and
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 which, 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,' he muttered, wiping his dry and fevered mouth. 'At last!'

The bell rang gently as he spoke.  He crept upstairs 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?'

Fagin 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 Fagin, 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 laying 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 Fagin, 'was to peach--to 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 Fagin almost in a yell.  'I, that knows 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 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.

Fagin 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 Fagin, 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--did she not?' cried Fagin, half mad
with fury.

'All right,' replied Noah, scratching his head.  'That's just what it
was!'

'What did they say, about last Sunday?'

'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?  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 Fagin.  '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 Fagin, 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 Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock.
'You won't be--'

'Well,' replied the other.

'You won't be--too--violent, Bill?'

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 Fagin 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 enough
light 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 allow, 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.



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 rage, 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 upward, 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 so much blood!

He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it. There
was 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, backward,
towards the door:  dragging the dog with him, lest he should soil his
feet anew and carry out new evidence 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 on
Hampstead Heath.  Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Heath, 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 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, 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 a 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, medicine 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 this, 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 vendor 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 half-pence 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 further, 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 game-keeper, 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 game-keeper, 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 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,' replied 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
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 on 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 on
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 now--always.  He leaned 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 them than
think upon them, 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 laid 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 his 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 ten-fold 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.'

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 to going back to London.

'There's somebody to speak to there, at all event,' he thought. 'A good
hiding-place, too.  They'll never expect to nab me there, after this
country scent.  Why can't I lie by for a week or so, and, forcing blunt
from Fagin, get abroad to France?  Damme, 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 description 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; whether his instinct apprehended something of their
purpose, or the robber's sidelong look at him was sterner than
ordinary, he skulked a little farther 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.

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.

The dog wagged his tail, but moved not.  Sikes made a running noose and
called him again.

The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, 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 at length
he resumed his journey.



 The twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow
alighted from a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly.  The
door being opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed
himself on one side of the steps, while another man, who had been
seated on the box, dismounted too, and stood upon the other side.  At a
sign from Mr. Brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him
between them, hurried him into the house. This man was Monks.

They walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and Mr.
Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room. At the door of
this apartment, Monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance,
stopped.  The two men looked at the old gentleman as if for
instructions.

'He knows the alternative,' said Mr. Browlow.  'If he hesitates or
moves a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for
the aid of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.'

'How dare you say this of me?' asked Monks.

'How dare you urge me to it, young man?' replied Mr. Brownlow,
confronting him with a steady look.  'Are you mad enough to leave this
house?  Unhand him.  There, sir. You are free to go, and we to follow.
But I warn you, by all I hold most solemn and most sacred, that instant
will have you apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery.  I am
resolute and immoveable.  If you are determined to be the same, your
blood be upon your own head!'

'By what authority am I kidnapped in the street, and brought here by
these dogs?' asked Monks, looking from one to the other of the men who
stood beside him.

'By mine,' replied Mr. Brownlow.  'Those persons are indemnified by me.
If you complain of being deprived of your liberty--you had power and
opportunity to retrieve it as you came along, but you deemed it
advisable to remain quiet--I say again, throw yourself for protection
on the law.  I will appeal to the law too; but when you have gone too
far to recede, do not sue to me for leniency, when the power will have
passed into other hands; and do not say I plunged you down the gulf
into which you rushed, yourself.'

Monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides.  He hesitated.

'You will decide quickly,' said Mr. Brownlow, with perfect firmness and
composure.  'If you wish me to prefer my charges publicly, and consign
you to a punishment the extent of which, although I can, with a
shudder, foresee, I cannot control, once more, I say, for you know the
way.  If not, and you appeal to my forbearance, and the mercy of those
you have deeply injured, seat yourself, without a word, in that chair.
It has waited for you two whole days.'

Monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still.

'You will be prompt,' said Mr. Brownlow.  'A word from me, and the
alternative has gone for ever.'

Still the man hesitated.

'I have not the inclination to parley,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'and, as I
advocate the dearest interests of others, I have not the right.'

'Is there--' demanded Monks with a faltering tongue,--'is there--no
middle course?'

'None.'

Monks looked at the old gentleman, with an anxious eye; but, reading in
his countenance nothing but severity and determination, walked into the
room, and, shrugging his shoulders, sat down.

'Lock the door on the outside,' said Mr. Brownlow to the attendants,
'and come when I ring.'

The men obeyed, and the two were left alone together.

'This is pretty treatment, sir,' said Monks, throwing down his hat and
cloak, 'from my father's oldest friend.'

'It is because I was your father's oldest friend, young man,' returned
Mr. Brownlow; 'it is because the hopes and wishes of young and happy
years were bound up with him, and that fair creature of his blood and
kindred who rejoined her God in youth, and left me here a solitary,
lonely man:  it is because he knelt with me beside his only sisters's
death-bed when he was yet a boy, on the morning that would--but Heaven
willed otherwise--have made her my young wife; it is because my seared
heart clung to him, from that time forth, through all his trials and
errors, till he died; it is because old recollections and associations
filled my heart, and even the sight of you brings with it old thoughts
of him; it is because of all these things that I am moved to treat you
gently now--yes, Edward Leeford, even now--and blush for your
unworthiness who bear the name.'

'What has the name to do with it?' asked the other, after
contemplating, half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the
agitation of his companion.  'What is the name to me?'

'Nothing,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'nothing to you.  But it was _hers_,
and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an old man, the
glow and thrill which I once felt, only to hear it repeated by a
stranger.  I am very glad you have changed it--very--very.'

'This is all mighty fine,' said Monks (to retain his assumed
designation) after a long silence, during which he had jerked himself
in sullen defiance to and fro, and Mr. Brownlow had sat, shading his
face with his hand. 'But what do you want with me?'

'You have a brother,' said Mr. Brownlow, rousing himself:  'a brother,
the whisper of whose name in your ear when I came behind you in the
street, was, in itself, almost enough to make you accompany me hither,
in wonder and alarm.'

'I have no brother,' replied Monks.  'You know I was an only child.
Why do you talk to me of brothers?  You know that, as well as I.'

'Attend to what I do know, and you may not,' said Mr. Brownlow. 'I
shall interest you by and by.  I know that of the wretched marriage,
into which family pride, and the most sordid and narrowest of all
ambition, forced your unhappy father when a mere boy, you were the sole
and most unnatural issue.'

'I don't care for hard names,' interrupted Monks with a jeering laugh.
'You know the fact, and that's enough for me.'

'But I also know,' pursued the old gentleman, 'the misery, the slow
torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union. I know how
listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pair dragged on their
heavy chain through a world that was poisoned to them both.  I know how
cold formalities were succeeded by open taunts; how indifference gave
place to dislike, dislike to hate, and hate to loathing, until at last
they wrenched the clanking bond asunder, and retiring a wide space
apart, carried each a galling fragment, of which nothing but death
could break the rivets, to hide it in new society beneath the gayest
looks they could assume.  Your mother succeeded; she forgot it soon.
But it rusted and cankered at your father's heart for years.'

'Well, they were separated,' said Monks, 'and what of that?'

'When they had been separated for some time,' returned Mr. Brownlow,
'and your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had
utterly forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who,
with prospects blighted, lingered on at home, he fell among new
friends.  This circumstance, at least, you know already.'

'Not I,' said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon
the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. 'Not I.'

'Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never
forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,' returned Mr.
Brownlow.  'I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than
eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty--for he was, I
repeat, a boy, when _his_ father ordered him to marry. Must I go back
to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will
you spare it, and disclose to me the truth?'

'I have nothing to disclose,' rejoined Monks.  'You must talk on if you
will.'

'These new friends, then,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'were a naval officer
retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year
before, and left him with two children--there had been more, but, of
all their family, happily but two survived. They were both daughters;
one a beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two
or three years old.'

'What's this to me?' asked Monks.

'They resided,' said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hear the
interruption, 'in a part of the country to which your father in his
wandering had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode.
Acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other. Your
father was gifted as few men are.  He had his sister's soul and person.
As the old officer knew him more and more, he grew to love him.  I
would that it had ended there.  His daughter did the same.'

The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with his eyes
fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed:

'The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted, to that
daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a
guileless girl.'

'Your tale is of the longest,' observed Monks, moving restlessly in his
chair.

'It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man,' returned
Mr. Brownlow, 'and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed
joy and happiness, it would be very brief.  At length one of those rich
relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your father had
been sacrificed, as others are often--it is no uncommon case--died, and
to repair the misery he had been instrumental in occasioning, left him
his panacea for all griefs--Money.  It was necessary that he should
immediately repair to Rome, whither this man had sped for health, and
where he had died, leaving his affairs in great confusion.  He went;
was seized with mortal illness there; was followed, the moment the
intelligence reached Paris, by your mother who carried you with her; he
died the day after her arrival, leaving no will--_no will_--so that the
whole property fell to her and you.'

At this part of the recital Monks held his breath, and listened with a
face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directed towards
the speaker.  As Mr. Brownlow paused, he changed his position with the
air of one who has experienced a sudden relief, and wiped his hot face
and hands.

'Before he went abroad, and as he passed through London on his way,'
said Mr. Brownlow, slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the other's face,
'he came to me.'

'I never heard of that,' interrupted Monks in a tone intended to appear
incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeable surprise.

'He came to me, and left with me, among some other things, a picture--a
portrait painted by himself--a likeness of this poor girl--which he did
not wish to leave behind, and could not carry forward on his hasty
journey.  He was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked
in a wild, distracted way, of ruin and dishonour worked by himself;
confided to me his intention to convert his whole property, at any
loss, into money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of
his recent acquisition, to fly the country--I guessed too well he would
not fly alone--and never see it more.  Even from me, his old and early
friend, whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth that
covered one most dear to both--even from me he withheld any more
particular confession, promising to write and tell me all, and after
that to see me once again, for the last time on earth. Alas!  _That_
was the last time.  I had no letter, and I never saw him more.'

'I went,' said Mr. Brownlow, after a short pause, 'I went, when all was
over, to the scene of his--I will use the term the world would freely
use, for worldly harshness or favour are now alike to him--of his
guilty love, resolved that if my fears were realised that erring child
should find one heart and home to shelter and compassionate her.  The
family had left that part a week before; they had called in such
trifling debts as were outstanding, discharged them, and left the place
by night.  Why, or whither, none can tell.'

Monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round with a smile of
triumph.

'When your brother,' said Mr. Brownlow, drawing nearer to the other's
chair, 'When your brother:  a feeble, ragged, neglected child:  was
cast in my way by a stronger hand than chance, and rescued by me from a
life of vice and infamy--'

'What?' cried Monks.

'By me,' said Mr. Brownlow.  'I told you I should interest you before
long.  I say by me--I see that your cunning associate suppressed my
name, although for ought he knew, it would be quite strange to your
ears.  When he was rescued by me, then, and lay recovering from
sickness in my house, his strong resemblance to this picture I have
spoken of, struck me with astonishment.  Even when I first saw him in
all his dirt and misery, there was a lingering expression in his face
that came upon me like a glimpse of some old friend flashing on one in
a vivid dream.  I need not tell you he was snared away before I knew
his history--'

'Why not?' asked Monks hastily.

'Because you know it well.'

'I!'

'Denial to me is vain,' replied Mr. Brownlow.  'I shall show you that I
know more than that.'

'You--you--can't prove anything against me,' stammered Monks.  'I defy
you to do it!'

'We shall see,' returned the old gentleman with a searching glance.  'I
lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him.  Your mother
being dead, I knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody
could, and as when I had last heard of you you were on your own estate
in the West Indies--whither, as you well know, you retired upon your
mother's death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here--I
made the voyage.  You had left it, months before, and were supposed to
be in London, but no one could tell where.  I returned.  Your agents
had no clue to your residence.  You came and went, they said, as
strangely as you had ever done:  sometimes for days together and
sometimes not for months:  keeping to all appearance the same low
haunts and mingling with the same infamous herd who had been your
associates when a fierce ungovernable boy.  I wearied them with new
applications.  I paced the streets by night and day, but until two
hours ago, all my efforts were fruitless, and I never saw you for an
instant.'

'And now you do see me,' said Monks, rising boldly, 'what then? Fraud
and robbery are high-sounding words--justified, you think, by a fancied
resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man's Brother!
You don't even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you
don't even know that.'

'I _did not_,' replied Mr. Brownlow, rising too; 'but within the last
fortnight I have learnt it all.  You have a brother; you know it, and
him.  There was a will, which your mother destroyed, leaving the secret
and the gain to you at her own death.  It contained a reference to some
child likely to be the result of this sad connection, which child was
born, and accidentally encountered by you, when your suspicions were
first awakened by his resemblance to your father.  You repaired to the
place of his birth. There existed proofs--proofs long suppressed--of
his birth and parentage.  Those proofs were destroyed by you, and now,
in your own words to your accomplice the Jew, "_the only proofs of the
boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that
received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin_." Unworthy son,
coward, liar,--you, who hold your councils with thieves and murderers
in dark rooms at night,--you, whose plots and wiles have brought a
violent death upon the head of one worth millions such as you,--you,
who from your cradle were gall and bitterness to your own father's
heart, and in whom all evil passions, vice, and profligacy, festered,
till they found a vent in a hideous disease which had made your face an
index even to your mind--you, Edward Leeford, do you still brave me!'

'No, no, no!' returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated
charges.

'Every word!' cried the gentleman, 'every word that has passed between
you and this detested villain, is known to me.  Shadows on the wall
have caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the
persecuted child has turned vice itself, and given it the courage and
almost the attributes of virtue. Murder has been done, to which you
were morally if not really a party.'

'No, no,' interposed Monks.  'I--I knew nothing of that; I was going to
inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me.  I didn't know the
cause.  I thought it was a common quarrel.'

'It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,' replied Mr. Brownlow.
'Will you disclose the whole?'

'Yes, I will.'

'Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before
witnesses?'

'That I promise too.'

'Remain quietly here, until such a document is drawn up, and proceed
with me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, for the purpose
of attesting it?'

'If you insist upon that, I'll do that also,' replied Monks.

'You must do more than that,' said Mr. Brownlow.  'Make restitution to
an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the
offspring of a guilty and most miserable love.  You have not forgotten
the provisions of the will.  Carry them into execution so far as your
brother is concerned, and then go where you please.  In this world you
need meet no more.'

While Monks was pacing up and down, meditating with dark and evil looks
on this proposal and the possibilities of evading it:  torn by his
fears on the one hand and his hatred on the other:  the door was
hurriedly unlocked, and a gentleman (Mr. Losberne) entered the room in
violent agitation.

'The man will be taken,' he cried.  'He will be taken to-night!'

'The murderer?' asked Mr. Brownlow.

'Yes, yes,' replied the other.  'His dog has been seen lurking about
some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is,
or will be, there, under cover of the darkness.  Spies are hovering
about in every direction.  I have spoken to the men who are charged
with his capture, and they tell me he cannot escape.  A reward of a
hundred pounds is proclaimed by Government to-night.'

'I will give fifty more,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'and proclaim it with my
own lips upon the spot, if I can reach it.  Where is Mr. Maylie?'

'Harry?  As soon as he had seen your friend here, safe in a coach with
you, he hurried off to where he heard this,' replied the doctor, 'and
mounting his horse sallied forth to join the first party at some place
in the outskirts agreed upon between them.'

'Fagin,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'what of him?'

'When I last heard, he had not been taken, but he will be, or is, by
this time.  They're sure of him.'

'Have you made up your mind?' asked Mr. Brownlow, in a low voice, of
Monks.

'Yes,' he replied.  'You--you--will be secret with me?'

'I will.  Remain here till I return.  It is your only hope of safety.'

They left the room, and the door was again locked.

'What have you done?' asked the doctor in a whisper.

'All that I could hope to do, and even more.  Coupling the poor girl's
intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good
friend's inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and
laid bare the whole villainy which by these lights became plain as day.
Write and appoint the evening after to-morrow, at seven, for the
meeting.  We shall be down there, a few hours before, but shall require
rest:  especially the young lady, who _may_ have greater need of
firmness than either you or I can quite foresee just now.  But my blood
boils to avenge this poor murdered creature.  Which way have they
taken?'

'Drive straight to the office and you will be in time,' replied Mr.
Losberne.  'I will remain here.'

The two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever of excitement
wholly uncontrollable.



Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe
abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on
the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of
close-built low-roofed houses, there exists the filthiest, the
strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are
hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of
its inhabitants.

To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of
close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and poorest
of waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may be supposed to
occasion.  The cheapest and least delicate provisions are heaped in the
shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing apparel dangle at
the salesman's door, and stream from the house-parapet and windows.
Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class,
ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the
raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along,
assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which
branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of
ponderous waggons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks
of warehouses that rise from every corner.  Arriving, at length, in
streets remoter and less-frequented than those through which he has
passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts projecting over the
pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he passes, chimneys
half crushed half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by rusty iron
bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign
of desolation and neglect.

In such a neighborhood, beyond Dockhead in the Borough of Southwark,
stands Jacob's Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet
deep and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill
Pond, but known in the days of this story as Folly Ditch.  It is a
creek or inlet from the Thames, and can always be filled at high water
by opening the sluices at the Lead Mills from which it took its old
name.  At such times, a stranger, looking from one of the wooden
bridges thrown across it at Mill Lane, will see the inhabitants of the
houses on either side lowering from their back doors and windows,
buckets, pails, domestic utensils of all kinds, in which to haul the
water up; and when his eye is turned from these operations to the
houses themselves, his utmost astonishment will be excited by the scene
before him.  Crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen
houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows,
broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen
that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the
air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they
shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and
threatening to fall into it--as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls
and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every
loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the
banks of Folly Ditch.

In Jacob's Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are
crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling
into the streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke.
Thirty or forty years ago, before losses and chancery suits came upon
it, it was a thriving place; but now it is a desolate island indeed.
The houses have no owners; they are broken open, and entered upon by
those who have the courage; and there they live, and there they die.
They must have powerful motives for a secret residence, or be reduced
to a destitute condition indeed, who seek a refuge in Jacob's Island.

In an upper room of one of these houses--a detached house of fair size,
ruinous in other respects, but strongly defended at door and window:
of which house the back commanded the ditch in manner already
described--there were assembled three men, who, regarding each other
every now and then with looks expressive of perplexity and expectation,
sat for some time in profound and gloomy silence.  One of these was
Toby Crackit, another Mr. Chitling, and the third a robber of fifty
years, whose nose had been almost beaten in, in some old scuffle, and
whose face bore a frightful scar which might probably be traced to the
same occasion.  This man was a returned transport, and his name was
Kags.

'I wish,' said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, 'that you had picked out
some other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come
here, my fine feller.'

'Why didn't you, blunder-head!' said Kags.

'Well, I thought you'd have been a little more glad to see me than
this,' replied Mr. Chitling, with a melancholy air.

'Why, look'e, young gentleman,' said Toby, 'when a man keeps himself so
very ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over
his head with nobody a prying and smelling about it, it's rather a
startling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman
(however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with
at conweniency) circumstanced as you are.'

'Especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping
with him, that's arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts,
and is too modest to want to be presented to the Judges on his return,'
added Mr. Kags.

There was a short silence, after which Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon
as hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care
swagger, turned to Chitling and said,

'When was Fagin took then?'

'Just at dinner-time--two o'clock this afternoon.  Charley and I made
our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty
water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that
they stuck out at the top, and so they took him too.'

'And Bet?'

'Poor Bet!  She went to see the Body, to speak to who it was,' replied
Chitling, his countenance falling more and more, 'and went off mad,
screaming and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they
put a strait-weskut on her and took her to the hospital--and there she
is.'

'Wot's come of young Bates?' demanded Kags.

'He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he'll be here
soon,' replied Chitling.  'There's nowhere else to go to now, for the
people at the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken--I
went up there and see it with my own eyes--is filled with traps.'

'This is a smash,' observed Toby, biting his lips. 'There's more than
one will go with this.'

'The sessions are on,' said Kags:  'if they get the inquest over, and
Bolter turns King's evidence:  as of course he will, from what he's
said already:  they can prove Fagin an accessory before the fact, and
get the trial on on Friday, and he'll swing in six days from this, by
G--!'

'You should have heard the people groan,' said Chitling; 'the officers
fought like devils, or they'd have torn him away.  He was down once,
but they made a ring round him, and fought their way along.  You should
have seen how he looked about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to
them as if they were his dearest friends.  I can see 'em now, not able
to stand upright with the pressing of the mob, and draggin him along
amongst 'em; I can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and
snarling with their teeth and making at him; I can see the blood upon
his hair and beard, and hear the cries with which the women worked
themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore
they'd tear his heart out!'

The horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his
ears, and with his eyes closed got up and paced violently to and fro,
like one distracted.

While he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their
eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs,
and Sikes's dog bounded into the room.  They ran to the window,
downstairs, and into the street.  The dog had jumped in at an open
window; he made no attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be
seen.

'What's the meaning of this?' said Toby when they had returned. 'He
can't be coming here.  I--I--hope not.'

'If he was coming here, he'd have come with the dog,' said Kags,
stooping down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor.
'Here!  Give us some water for him; he has run himself faint.'

'He's drunk it all up, every drop,' said Chitling after watching the
dog some time in silence.  'Covered with mud--lame--half blind--he must
have come a long way.'

'Where can he have come from!' exclaimed Toby.  'He's been to the other
kens of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here,
where he's been many a time and often.  But where can he have come from
first, and how comes he here alone without the other!'

'He'--(none of them called the murderer by his old name)--'He can't
have made away with himself.  What do you think?' said Chitling.

Toby shook his head.

'If he had,' said Kags, 'the dog 'ud want to lead us away to where he
did it.  No.  I think he's got out of the country, and left the dog
behind.  He must have given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn't be so
easy.'

This solution, appearing the most probable one, was adopted as the
right; the dog, creeping under a chair, coiled himself up to sleep,
without more notice from anybody.

It being now dark, the shutter was closed, and a candle lighted and
placed upon the table.  The terrible events of the last two days had
made a deep impression on all three, increased by the danger and
uncertainty of their own position.  They drew their chairs closer
together, starting at every sound.  They spoke little, and that in
whispers, and were as silent and awe-stricken as if the remains of the
murdered woman lay in the next room.

They had sat thus, some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried
knocking at the door below.

'Young Bates,' said Kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he
felt himself.

The knocking came again.  No, it wasn't he.  He never knocked like that.

Crackit went to the window, and shaking all over, drew in his head.
There was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough.
The dog too was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door.

'We must let him in,' he said, taking up the candle.

'Isn't there any help for it?' asked the other man in a hoarse voice.

'None.  He _must_ come in.'

'Don't leave us in the dark,' said Kags, taking down a candle from the
chimney-piece, and lighting it, with such a trembling hand that the
knocking was twice repeated before he had finished.

Crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the
lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over
his head under his hat.  He drew them slowly off.  Blanched face,
sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh,
short thick breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes.

He laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room,
but shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance
over his shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall--as close as it
would go--and ground it against it--and sat down.

Not a word had been exchanged.  He looked from one to another in
silence.  If an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly
averted.  When his hollow voice broke silence, they all three started.
They seemed never to have heard its tones before.

'How came that dog here?' he asked.

'Alone.  Three hours ago.'

'To-night's paper says that Fagin's took.  Is it true, or a lie?'

'True.'

They were silent again.

'Damn you all!' said Sikes, passing his hand across his forehead.

'Have you nothing to say to me?'

There was an uneasy movement among them, but nobody spoke.

'You that keep this house,' said Sikes, turning his face to Crackit,
'do you mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?'

'You may stop here, if you think it safe,' returned the person
addressed, after some hesitation.

Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him:  rather trying to
turn his head than actually doing it:  and said, 'Is--it--the body--is
it buried?'

They shook their heads.

'Why isn't it!' he retorted with the same glance behind him. 'Wot do
they keep such ugly things above the ground for?--Who's that knocking?'

Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that
there was nothing to fear; and directly came back with Charley Bates
behind him.  Sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy
entered the room he encountered his figure.

'Toby,' said the boy falling back, as Sikes turned his eyes towards
him, 'why didn't you tell me this, downstairs?'

There had been something so tremendous in the shrinking off of the
three, that the wretched man was willing to propitiate even this lad.
Accordingly he nodded, and made as though he would shake hands with him.

'Let me go into some other room,' said the boy, retreating still
farther.

'Charley!' said Sikes, stepping forward.  'Don't you--don't you know
me?'

'Don't come nearer me,' answered the boy, still retreating, and
looking, with horror in his eyes, upon the murderer's face.  'You
monster!'

The man stopped half-way, and they looked at each other; but Sikes's
eyes sunk gradually to the ground.

'Witness you three,' cried the boy shaking his clenched fist, and
becoming more and more excited as he spoke. 'Witness you three--I'm not
afraid of him--if they come here after him, I'll give him up; I will.
I tell you out at once.  He may kill me for it if he likes, or if he
dares, but if I am here I'll give him up.  I'd give him up if he was to
be boiled alive.  Murder! Help!  If there's the pluck of a man among
you three, you'll help me.  Murder!  Help!  Down with him!'

Pouring out these cries, and accompanying them with violent
gesticulation, the boy actually threw himself, single-handed, upon the
strong man, and in the intensity of his energy and the suddenness of
his surprise, brought him heavily to the ground.

The three spectators seemed quite stupefied.  They offered no
interference, and the boy and man rolled on the ground together; the
former, heedless of the blows that showered upon him, wrenching his
hands tighter and tighter in the garments about the murderer's breast,
and never ceasing to call for help with all his might.

The contest, however, was too unequal to last long.  Sikes had him
down, and his knee was on his throat, when Crackit pulled him back with
a look of alarm, and pointed to the window.  There were lights gleaming
below, voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried
footsteps--endless they seemed in number--crossing the nearest wooden
bridge.  One man on horseback seemed to be among the crowd; for there
was the noise of hoofs rattling on the uneven pavement.  The gleam of
lights increased; the footsteps came more thickly and noisily on.
Then, came a loud knocking at the door, and then a hoarse murmur from
such a multitude of angry voices as would have made the boldest quail.

'Help!' shrieked the boy in a voice that rent the air.

'He's here!  Break down the door!'

'In the King's name,' cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry
arose again, but louder.

'Break down the door!' screamed the boy.  'I tell you they'll never
open it.  Run straight to the room where the light is. Break down the
door!'

Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower
window-shutters as he ceased to speak, and a loud huzzah burst from the
crowd; giving the listener, for the first time, some adequate idea of
its immense extent.

'Open the door of some place where I can lock this screeching
Hell-babe,' cried Sikes fiercely; running to and fro, and dragging the
boy, now, as easily as if he were an empty sack. 'That door.  Quick!'
He flung him in, bolted it, and turned the key.  'Is the downstairs
door fast?'

'Double-locked and chained,' replied Crackit, who, with the other two
men, still remained quite helpless and bewildered.

'The panels--are they strong?'

'Lined with sheet-iron.'

'And the windows too?'

'Yes, and the windows.'

'Damn you!' cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash and
menacing the crowd.  'Do your worst!  I'll cheat you yet!'

Of all the terrific yells that ever fell on mortal ears, none could
exceed the cry of the infuriated throng.  Some shouted to those who
were nearest to set the house on fire; others roared to the officers to
shoot him dead.  Among them all, none showed such fury as the man on
horseback, who, throwing himself out of the saddle, and bursting
through the crowd as if he were parting water, cried, beneath the
window, in a voice that rose above all others, 'Twenty guineas to the
man who brings a ladder!'

The nearest voices took up the cry, and hundreds echoed it.  Some
called for ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to
and fro as if to seek them, and still came back and roared again; some
spent their breath in impotent curses and execrations; some pressed
forward with the ecstasy of madmen, and thus impeded the progress of
those below; some among the boldest attempted to climb up by the
water-spout and crevices in the wall; and all waved to and fro, in the
darkness beneath, like a field of corn moved by an angry wind:  and
joined from time to time in one loud furious roar.

'The tide,' cried the murderer, as he staggered back into the room, and
shut the faces out, 'the tide was in as I came up. Give me a rope, a
long rope.  They're all in front.  I may drop into the Folly Ditch, and
clear off that way.  Give me a rope, or I shall do three more murders
and kill myself.'

The panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the
murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up
to the house-top.

All the window in the rear of the house had been long ago bricked up,
except one small trap in the room where the boy was locked, and that
was too small even for the passage of his body.  But, from this
aperture, he had never ceased to call on those without, to guard the
back; and thus, when the murderer emerged at last on the house-top by
the door in the roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to those in
front, who immediately began to pour round, pressing upon each other in
an unbroken stream.

He planted a board, which he had carried up with him for the purpose,
so firmly against the door that it must be matter of great difficulty
to open it from the inside; and creeping over the tiles, looked over
the low parapet.

The water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud.

The crowd had been hushed during these few moments, watching his
motions and doubtful of his purpose, but the instant they perceived it
and knew it was defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to
which all their previous shouting had been whispers.  Again and again
it rose.  Those who were at too great a distance to know its meaning,
took up the sound; it echoed and re-echoed; it seemed as though the
whole city had poured its population out to curse him.

On pressed the people from the front--on, on, on, in a strong
struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch
to lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion.
The houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the
mob; sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and
tiers of faces in every window; cluster upon cluster of people clinging
to every house-top.  Each little bridge (and there were three in sight)
bent beneath the weight of the crowd upon it.  Still the current poured
on to find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only
for an instant see the wretch.

'They have him now,' cried a man on the nearest bridge. 'Hurrah!'

The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose.

'I will give fifty pounds,' cried an old gentleman from the same
quarter, 'to the man who takes him alive.  I will remain here, till he
come to ask me for it.'

There was another roar.  At this moment the word was passed among the
crowd that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first
called for the ladder had mounted into the room.  The stream abruptly
turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at
the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their
stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now
thronged pell-mell to the spot they had left:  each man crushing and
striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near
the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out.
The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation,
or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were
dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time,
between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and
the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the
mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer,
although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible,
increased.

The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the
crowd, and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change
with no less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet,
determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the
ditch, and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in
the darkness and confusion.

Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within
the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he
set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the
rope tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong
running noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second.  He
could let himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the
ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut
it then and drop.

At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to
slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman
before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge
as to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly
warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down--at
that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw
his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror.

'The eyes again!' he cried in an unearthly screech.

Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled
over the parapet.  The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his
weight, tight as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds.  He
fell for five-and-thirty feet.  There was a sudden jerk, a terrific
convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife
clenched in his stiffening hand.

The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The
murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside
the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come
and take him out, for God's sake.

A dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on
the parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring,
jumped for the dead man's shoulders. Missing his aim, he fell into the
ditch, turning completely over as he went; and striking his head
against a stone, dashed out his brains.

 Nancy goes, with Noah following, to London Bridge, where she waits. At two minutes past midnight, Rose and Mr. Brownlow get out of a carriage, and walk towards the bridge. Nancy sees them, and immediately heads towards them. Nancy tells them she can't talk in the open, and leads them to a staircase going down to the river. Noah, seeing this, finds the perfect spot from which to overhear them. Nancy says that she has had a horrible fear and premonition of death all day, which was why she was too nervous to speak on the bridge. Mr. Brownlow tells Nancy that he believes her story, and that if she leads them to Monks, they will do their best to respect her wishes, and not turn in Fagin or Sikes. Nancy tells them about The Three Cripples, and gives them all the information they could need to find Monks there, without arousing anyone's suspicions. Mr. Brownlow tries to convince Nancy to take his help to escape her life with Sikes and Fagin, but she will not be persuaded. She also refuses to take money, only accepting a token of something that Rose has worn, to remember her by. As Mr. Brownlow and Rose walk out of sight, Nancy collapses into tears. As soon as she carries herself off, Noah runs back to Fagin's. After hearing Noah's report, Fagin sits in profound anger, waiting for Sikes to return from his thieving. Fagin looks at Sikes with such an extreme facial expression, that Sikes fears he will attack him, but Fagin says Sikes is not the source of his anger. Fagin questions Sikes, asking what he would do to Noah, or Fagin himself, or Charley, etc, if they had done what Nancy did. When Sikes has repeated that he would kill whoever did it, no matter what, Fagin wakes Noah up, and makes him repeat the whole story for Sikes. Sikes storms out in a rage, and both Fagin and he know that he is going to kill Nancy. He rushes home, where Nancy begs him not to kill her, and instead to leave all of this behind with her as per Mr. Brownlow's offer, but instead he beats her to death with his gun. She manages to say one prayer for mercy before she dies. The sun rises, shining especially brightly and beautifully, and although he tries, Sikes cannot block it out from the awful scene. After sitting completely still, staring at Nancy's body, Sikes finally gets up and cleans himself, his clothes, and his weapon off as best he can. He leaves the apartment with his dog, and locks the door behind him. He wanders around, stopping for a bit to sleep, then wanders some more. Finally, by night, he finds a pub remote enough that he feels comfortable entering, and goes in for dinner. While he is eating, a peddler comes in who is selling stain remover. To encourage buyers, he says that he will get the stain out of Sikes's hat, and grabs it. Sikes lunges for it, and upon getting back, rushes out of the pub. Sikes walks on without destination, and begins to feel terrified by the sense that Nancy's ghost is following him. He finds a shed in which he stops for the night, but while there, he has a vision of Nancy's dead eyes floating in the darkness, everywhere he looks. He is utterly terrified, until he hears men shouting, which, although actually dangerous, energizes him. He rushes out of the shed and sees that there is a large fire, which he runs to. He joins in the fray of people trying to fight it, and works frantically all night. When the fire is out, he eats some food with the other men, and while doing so hears the firemen talking about the murder, and the manhunt for Sikes. He hurries off until he drops onto the ground and sleeps. He wanders some more, then decides to go back to London and hideout for a week, before escaping to France. On his way, his dog suddenly refuses to follow him anymore, and runs off. Sikes waits for awhile, but the dog never returns, and so he continues on to London alone. Mr. Brownlow, with two men helping, takes Monks to his house. They do not physically force him to enter, but Mr. Brownlow says that the minute Monks tries to leave, he will call the police, and levy charges of fraud and robbery against him. Mr. Brownlow was Monks's father's oldest friend, and Monks's real name is Edward Leeford. Mr. Brownlow also had been betrothed to Leeford's aunt, but she had died on the morning of their wedding day. Leeford's father, Edwin Leeford, had been forced into a very unhappily marriage to Leeford's mother when he was very young, and they had eventually separated. After this separation, Edwin became good friends with a naval officer, whose beautiful daughter fell in love with him. Edwin, soon after inheriting a great fortune, dies without a will, so the fortune goes to his first wife, and Edward. Mr. Brownlow reveals to Edward that his father had come to him before he died, and left with him a portrait of the officer's daughter, Agnes Fleming, and told him that he was planning to convert his new fortune to cash, leave some to his first wife and Edward, and use the rest to flee the country with Agnes. After Edward's father's death, Mr. Brownlow went to try to find Agnes, but her family had moved quite suddenly, and so it was not until Oliver appeared, looking so much like her portrait, that he had any idea of his existence. Mr. Brownlow tells Leeford all he knows about his own actions, and overwhelmed by the charges, Leeford admits his guilt. Mr. Losberne comes in, and says that they are on the point of capturing Sikes. On Jacob's Island, a place of very deep poverty, Toby Crackit, Tom Chitling, and Kags, an older robber, sit together. It is Toby's place, and he is not happy that Chitling has come there. Chitling tells them that Fagin and Noah Claypole were taken by the police that afternoon, and Bet, who went mad upon seeing Nancy's body, was taken to a mental hospital, and everyone at the Cripples was arrested, and Bates is planning to come to Chitling's too, once it has gotten dark. Sikes's dog, without its master, jumps into the apartment through an open window. They don't see Sikes anywhere near, so they relax, but once darkness falls, they hear a knocking on the door, and it is the murderer. They let him in, seeing no other choice. Sikes looks terrible, and is haunted by the idea that Nancy has not yet been buried. Charley Bates arrives. Upon seeing Sikes, he shrinks back, and when Sikes steps towards him, he calls him a monster. Bates tells everyone that if anyone comes for Sikes, he will give him up in a moment, and starts yelling for help, then runs at Sikes and knocks him over. As Sikes gains the upper hand, Crackit stops him, for the police have arrived. The house is well reinforced, however, so Sikes is emboldened. As the crowd surrounds them and tries to climb into the house, Sikes gets a rope, and climbs onto the roof, intending to drop into the water on the other side. Bates, however, sees this, and yells to the crowd, who circles round to the back, where Sikes sees the tide has gone out, and there is only mud. Brownlow, from the crowd, offers fifty pounds to the man who can take Sikes alive. The crowd is distracted from Sikes for a moment when the police finally break into the house, and he takes his chance to make a running noose with the rope, and try to lower himself to the muddy ditch. Right as he puts the rope around his neck, however, he sees Nancy's eyes, and in a paroxysm of fear, slips, and hangs himself. Sikes's dog, who was also on the roof, leaps off after him, and dies also.

