CLVIII. TODD'S FEARFUL ADVENTURES ON THE RIVER…

CLVIII. TODD'S FEARFUL ADVENTURES ON THE RIVER

"Shall I lay hold of her," thought Todd, "and choke her the moment she comes into the room, or shall I answer her, and let her go again? Which will be the safest course? I suppose I must let her go, for she might possibly make a noise. Ah! how I should like to have my hand upon all their throats!"

Mrs. Hardman came into the room on tip-toe, leaving the folding-door just a little ajar.

"My dear sir," she said, "are you awake?"

"Oh, go to the deuce," said Todd.

"What did you remark, my dear sir?"

"Go along--go along--Eugh!--eugh! Oh, dear, how bad my cough is. I dreamt that no end of people were talking and talking away in the next room; but that can't be, as I have paid for it. Oh, dear!--oh!"

Mrs. Hardman took her cue from this; and she was at once resolved to pass off the disturbance in the next room as merely a dream of her new lodger.

"Dear me, sir," she said in the blandest possible accents; "have you indeed had a dream? What a singular thing!"

"Eugh! Is it? I don't think so."

"Well, sir, when I say singular, of course I mean that it's very natural. I always dream when I sleep in a strange bed, do you know, sir, and sometimes the most horrid dreams."

"Oh, go along."

"Yes, sir, directly. Would you like anything got for you, sir? A nice mutton chop for instance, or--or--"

"No--no! Good God, why don't you go?"

"I am going, sir. Thank you. There will be a very quiet house here, I assure you, sir."

With these words, Mrs. Hardman was about to leave the room, flattering herself that it was all passing off quite comfortably as a mere dream, when Ben, thinking it incumbent upon him to do something civil, suddenly popped his head into the room, and in a voice that sounded like the growl of some bear for his food, he said--

"Take it easy, old gentleman. You'll find that easy does it all the world over; and if so be as you ever comes near the Tower, just you ask for Ben, and I'll show you the beasteses, all gratis, and for nothing. Feeding time at four o'clock."

"Oh, you great ugly wretch!" cried Mrs. Hardman, dealing Ben a sound box on the ear. "How dared you interfere, I should like to know, you monster in inhuman shape?"

"Oh, lor!" said Ben, "I only hope another of the family ain't so handy with her front paws."

"Oh--oh!" said Todd. "No peace!--no peace!"

Mrs. Hardman at once closed the door of communication between the two rooms; for she quite despaired now of being able to make any apology to her lodger, and she seemed much inclined to execute further vengeance upon Ben, but Sir Richard Blunt interfered, saying--

"Come--come, Mrs. Hardman, you should recollect that what Ben said was with the very best of motives, and any one, you know, may go wrong a little in trying to do good. Let us all adjourn down stairs, and be no further disturbance to this old gentleman, who, taking everything into consideration, has, I think, shown quite an exemplary amount of patience."

Todd heard those words. They seemed to him quite like a reprieve from death.

"I will come down stairs, of course," said Mrs. Hardman, in an under tone; "but for all that, this great monster of a Ben ought to be put in one of his own cages, at the Tower, and there kept as a warning to all people."

"A warning o' what, mum?" said Ben.

Mrs. Hardman was not very clear about what he would be a warning of, so she got out of the difficulty by saying--"What's that to you, stupid?"--and as Ben was rather slow in explaining that it did rather concern him, she walked down stairs with a look of triumph that was highly amusing to Sir Richard Blunt, as well as to Mr. Hardman, the officer.

How Todd listened to the footsteps as they went down the stairs! How his heart beat responsive to every one of them! and when he felt for certain that that immediate and awful danger had passed away, he peeped out from amid the mass of bed-clothes, with his eyes almost starting from his head.

"Gone! gone!" he gasped. "He has really gone. My mortal enemy--the only man who can make me tremble, that terrible Sir Richard Blunt! That he should be within half-a-dozen paces of me; that he should hear me speak; that he should only have to stretch out his hand to lay it upon my shoulder, and yet that I should escape him! Oh, it cannot be real!"

Todd heard some accidental noise in the house, and he immediately dived his head under the bed-clothes again.

"They are coming again!--they are coming again!" he gasped.

The noise led to nothing, and after a few moments, Todd became convinced that it had nothing to do with him, so he ventured, half-suffocated, to look up again.

"I must listen--I must listen," he said, in a low anxious tone. "I must listen until he has gone. When I hear the street-door of the house shut, I shall think that they have let him go and then I shall be able to breathe again; but not before. Oh, no--no, not before--hush--hush! What is that?"

Every little accidental sound in the house now set the heart of Todd wildly beating. If one had come into the room, and said--"You are my prisoner,"--the probability was, that he would have fainted; but if he did not, it is quite certain that he could not have offered any resistance. A child might have captured him then, during the accession of terror that had come over him in that house, whither he had slunk purposely for safety and for secrecy.

At length he heard a noise of voices in the passage, and then the street-door was opened. As he lay, he could feel a rush of cold air in consequence. Then it was closed again, and the house was very still.

"He has gone! He has gone!" said Todd.

The manner in which Todd pronounced these few words it would be impossible to describe. No shivering wretch reprieved upon the scaffold, with the rope round his neck, could feel a greater relief than did Todd, when he found that the door of that house was really closed upon Sir Richard Blunt.

And then he began to felicitate himself upon the fact that, after all, he had come to that place; "for now," he thought, "I know that, although I have been in great danger, it has passed away; and as Sir Richard Blunt has transacted all his business in this house, he is not likely to come to it again."

That was a pleasant thought, and as Todd dashed from his brow the heavy drops that intense fear had caused to assemble there, he almost smiled.

A very profound stillness now reigned in the house, for Mrs. Hardman was resolved to make up to her lodger--as well as she could--for the noise and disturbance that had been so unwittingly caused in her front room. She had made Ben go away, and as her husband had likewise gone, in pursuance of the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, to take measures lest Todd should make an escape by the Thames, the place remained as calm and still as if no one were in it but herself.

Todd closed his eyes, and wearied nature sought relief in sleep. Even Sweeney Todd, with more than twenty mortal murders on his conscience, slept calmly for no less than six hours of that, to him, most eventful day.

Twice during this long sleep of her lodger's had Mrs. Hardman stolen into the front-room to listen, and been quite satisfied by the regular breathing, that, at all events, her lodger was not dead; and she kept herself upon the alert to attend to him whenever he should awake from that deep sleep.

The long shadows of the houses on the other side of the street had fallen upon the windows of the Hardmans' abode, and a slight fog began to make itself perceptible in London, when Todd awoke.

"Help--help! Oh, God, where am I?" he cried.

He sprang half out of the bed, and then the full tide of recollection came back to him, and he fully comprehended his situation in a moment.

"Hush!--hush!--hush!" he said; and he listened most intently to hear if his sudden exclamation had attracted any attention.

He heard a footstep on the stairs.

"Hush!--hush!" he said again, "hush--who is it? I must be very careful now!--Oh, very!"

The footstep paused at his door, and then he heard it in the next room, and Mrs. Hardman advancing to the folding doors, said, in the blandest of accents--

"Are you awake, sir, if you please?"

Todd at once assumed the tone in which he had formerly addressed her, and replied--

"Yes, madam, yes. I am awake!"

"And how do you feel now, sir, if you please?"

"Oh, a great deal better, ma'am, a great deal better. Indeed, I feel quite refreshed. I will come out directly, my dear madam. Pray have the goodness to take this guinea. I shall want a cup of tea at times, and I think I could take a cup now, my dear madam. You can get it out of that, and keep the change, you know, till I want something else."

"Oh, really, sir," said Mrs. Hardman, as she put her hand through a small opening of one of the folding doors and took the guinea. "It is quite delightful to have so pleasant a lodger as yourself--oh, quite.--I will get the tea directly, my dear sir, and pray make yourself quite at home, if you please."

"Yes, ma'am, I will--I will."

"Do, sir. I should be really unhappy now, if I did not think you were comfortable."

"Oh it's all right, ma'am. Eugh! Oh, dear! I do think my cough has been better since I have been here."

"How delightful to hear you say that!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardman, speaking in quite a tremulous voice of sympathetic emotion. "I will get the tea, directly, sir."

She left the room, and as she went down the stairs, she said to herself--

"What a pearl of a lodger, to be sure! He pays for everything over and over again. I should not, now, in the least wonder but the dear old gentleman will quite forget the change out of this guinea; if he does, it is not for me to vex him by putting him in mind of it. I know well, that old people never like it to be supposed that their memory fails them; so if he says nothing about it, I am sure I shall not. Oh, dear, no!"

"Wretch!" muttered Todd, as he crept out of the back room into the front. "Wretch, I find that money will purchase anything in this house; but am I surprised at that? Oh, no--no. Will not money purchase anything in this great world? Of course it will. Why, then, should this house be an exception to the rule so general? No--no. It is no exception; and I may be very safe for a few guineas well spent; and they are well spent, indeed. Oh, so well!"

Todd then, as he flung himself into the depths of an easy chair, that was really easy for a wonder, considering that it was in a lodging-house, began to arrange in his own mind his course of proceeding for the night.

"Let me think--let me think," he muttered. "I am now very much refreshed indeed, and feel quite strong and well, and equal to any emergency. That sleep has done me a world of good, and it is strange, too, that it has been the calmest and the quietest sleep I have enjoyed for many a month. I hope it is not prophetic of some coming evil."

He shuddered at the thought. Todd was each day--ay, each hour, becoming more and more superstitious.

"No--no. I will not think that. I will not be so mad as to disarm myself of my courage, by thinking that for a moment. I will take my tea here, and then I will sally forth, telling this woman that I will soon return, and then, after a dose of brandy, I will hire a boat and take to the river. What is that?"

The wind with a sudden gust came dashing against the windows, giving them such a shake, that it seemed as if it were intent upon getting into the room to buffet Todd.

He immediately rose, and going to the window, he placed his hideous face close to one of the panes, and looked out.

The sky was getting very black, and huge clouds were careering about it. The wind was evidently rising, and there was every appearance of its being most squally and tempestuous. Todd bit his lips with vexation.

"Always something!" he said. "Always something to annoy me, and to cross me. Always--always!"

"The tea, sir, if you please."

Todd turned round so suddenly, that he almost upset the servant with the tea equipage.

"Oh, very well. That will do--that will do. You are the servant of the house?"

"If you please, sir."

"Ah, you will then have to attend upon me while I am here, my dear, I presume?"

"Yes, sir, if you please."

"Very good--very good. You are a very nice young woman, and there's half-a-guinea for you. Eugh! I shall give you that sum every week while I stay here, you know."

"Lor, sir, will you?"

"Yes, yes. You can go now. Is the tea all right?"

"Oh, dear, yes, sir. You are very good indeed. Misses said as you was a very good lodger, which I knowed to mean as you didn't be petikler about your money, and now I sees you ain't. Thank you, sir, for me. I'll get up in the night if you want anythink."

CLIX. TODD MAKES A VIGOROUS ATTEMPT TO REACH GRAVESEND

The servant was so profuse in her acknowledgments for the half-guinea, that she seemed as if she would never get out of the room, and Todd had to say--

"There--there, that will do. Now leave me, my good girl--that will do," before she, with a curtsey at every step, withdrew.

"Well," she said, as she went down stairs. "If I tell misses of this, I'm a Prussian. Oh, dear, I keeps it to myself and says nothing to nobody, excepting to my Thomas as is in the horse-guards. Ah, he is a nice fellow, and out o' this I'll make him a present of a most elegant watch-ribbon, that he can put a bullet at the end of, and let it hang out of his fob all as if he had a real watch in his pocket."

"Humph!" said Todd. "I have bought her good opinion cheap. It was well worth ten-and-sixpence not to have the servant watching me, with, for all I know to the contrary, eyes of suspicion--well worth it."

It was not very often that Todd indulged himself with a cup of tea. Something stronger was commonly more congenial to his appetite; but upon this occasion, after his long sleep, the tea had upon him a most refreshing effect, and he took it with real pleasure. Mrs. Hardman, in consideration of the guinea she had received beforehand, had done him justice, as far as the quality of the tea was concerned, and he had it good.

"Well," he said, after his third cup, "I did not think that there was so much virtue in a cup of tea, after all; but of a surety, I feel wonderfully refreshed at it. How the wind blows."

The wind did, indeed, blow, for all the while that Todd was taking his tea it banged and buffeted against the window at such a rate, that it was really quite a fearful thing to listen to it.

A couple of candles had been lighted and brought into the room, but the gale without soon laid hold of their little flames, and tossed them about so, that they gave but a dim and sepulchral kind of light.

Todd rose again, and went to the window--again he placed his face close to the pane of glass, and shading his eyes with his hands, he looked out. A dashing rain was falling.

"They say that when the rain comes the wind moderates," he muttered; "but I see no signs of that, yet, it is almost a gale already."

At that moment there came such a gust of wind howling down the street, that Todd mechanically withdrew his head, as though it were some tangible enemy come to seek him.

"Always something to foil me here," he said; "always something; but out I must go. Let it look as strange as it may, I cannot stay a night in this house, for if I were to do so, that would involve the staying a day likewise; and it would be this time to-morrow before I dared venture abroad; and who knows what awful things might happen in that space of time? No, I must go to-night. I must go to-night."

He could not help feeling that his going out while the weather was in such a state would excite a great amount of wonder in the house; but that was a minor event in comparison to what might possibly ensue from remaining, so he put on his hat.

Tap--tap! came against the panel of his door.

Todd muttered an awful oath, and then said,--

"Come in."

Mrs. Hardman entered the room.

"I hope I don't intrude upon you, sir, but I was so very anxious to know if the tea was just as you like it, sir?"

"Oh, yes--yes. I am going out a little way, my good madam. Only a little way."

"Out, sir?"

"Yes, and why not?--why not? Oh, dear me! How bad my cough is to be sure, to-night. Eugh!--eugh!"

"Goodness gracious! my dear sir, you will not think of venturing out to-night? Oh, sir!"

"Why not, madam?"

"The wind, sir--the rain, sir--and the wind and the rain together, sir. Oh, dear! It isn't a night to turn out a dog in, not that I like dogs, but I beg, sir, you won't think of it. Only listen, sir. How it does blow, to be sure!"

"Madam!" said Todd, putting on a solemn look, "I must go. It is my duty to go."

"Your duty, sir?"

"Yes. Whenever the wind blows and the rain comes down, I put a quantity of small change in my pocket, and I go out to see what objects of distress in the streets I can relieve. It is then that I feel myself called upon in the sacred name of heavenly charity to see to the wants of my poorer fellow-creatures. It is then that I can find many a one whom I can make happy and comfortable for a brief space, at all events; and that's the way that I am always, you see, madam, with a bad cold."

"Generous man!" said Mrs. Hardman, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.

"Not at all, madam, not at all. It is one's duty, and nothing else. I feel bound to do it. But I shall want a little something for supper. A nice boiled chicken, if you please, and you will be so good as to get it for me, madam. Take this guinea, if you please, and we can talk about the change, you know, when I want anything else, my good madam."

"My word!" thought Mrs. Hardman. "He is a wonderful lodger, for he forgets all about his change. I feel that it would only vex the poor old gentleman to remind him of it, and that I do not feel justified in doing. A-hem! yes, sir. Oh, certainly, I will get the finest chicken, sir, that can be had."

"Do so, madam, do so. Now I'm going."

"Oh, Lord! there's a gust of wind!"

"I like it--I like it."

"And there's a dash of rain!"

"So much the better. Delightful, delightful, my dear madam, I shall find plenty of poor objects to relieve to-night. Under gateways, I shall find them, crouching upon door-steps, and shivering on spots where a little shelter can be found from the inclemency of the weather. This is my time to try and do a little good with that superfluous wealth which Providence has given me."

Mrs. Hardman made no further opposition to the benevolent intentions of a lodger who continually forgot his change, and Todd fairly left the house.

Little did the landlady think, while she was grasping at the guineas, that there was a reward of a thousand pounds for the apprehension of her lodger, and that it would every penny-piece of it have been duly paid to her at the Treasury, if she could but have managed to lock him in a room until the officers of justice could be sent for, to pounce upon him and load him with irons, and take him off to prison.

But poor Mrs. Hardman had really no idea of how near she was to fortune; and when the street-door closed upon Todd, she little suspected that she shut out such a sum as one thousand pounds sterling along with him.

"That is managed so far," said Todd, as he shrank and cowed before the storm-laden gale that dashed in his face the rain, as he reached the corner of the street.

There Todd paused, for a new fear came across him. It was that no waterman would venture upon the river with him on such a night; and yet after reasoning with himself a little time, he said--

"Watermen are human, and they love gold as much as any one else. After all, it only resolves itself into a question of how much I will pay."

Full of this idea, which, in its way, was a tolerably just one, he sneaked down the Strand until he got right to Charing Cross. He had thought of going down one of the quiet streets near that place, and taking a boat there; but now he considered that he would have a much better chance by going as far as Westminster Bridge; and, accordingly, despite the rain and the wind, he made his way along Whitehall, and reached the bridge.

A few watermen were lounging about at the head of the stairs. They had little enough expectation of getting a fare at such a time, and upon such a day. One of them, however, seeing Todd pause, went up to him, and spoke--

"You didn't want a boat, did you, sir?"

"Why, yes," said Todd, "I did; but, I suppose, you are all afraid to earn a couple of guineas?"

"A couple of guineas?"

"Yes, or three, for the matter of that; one more or less don't matter to me; but it may to you."

"Indeed, it does, sir. You are right enough there. But where do you want to go to sir? Up or down?"

"To Greenwich."

Todd thought if he mentioned Gravesend, he might frighten the man at once.

"Greenwich? Whew!" The waterman perpetrated a long whistle; and then, shaking his head, he said--"I'm very much afraid, sir, that it isn't a question of guineas that will settle that; but I will speak to my mate. Halloa Jack!--Jack! I say, old boy, where are you?"

"Here you are," said an old weather-beaten man coming up the steps. "I've only been making the little craft fast. What is the row now, Harry--eh?"

"No row, old mate; but this here gentleman offers a matter of three guineas for a cruise to Greenwich."

"Ay, and why not, Harry?"

"Why not? Don't you hear how it's blowing?"

"Yes, I do, Harry; but it won't blow long. I've seen more gales than you have, lad, and I tell you that this one is all but over. The rain, in another quarter of an hour, will beat it all down. It's fast going now. It will be a wet night, and a dark night; but it won't blow, nor it won't be cold."

"If you say as much as that, Jack," said the younger waterman, "I will swear to it."

The old man smiled, as he added--

"Ah, dear me, yes, and so you may, Harry. I haven't been so long out of doors that I don't know the fancies of the weather. I can tell you a'most what it's a going to do beforehand, better than it knows itself. There, don't you hear how it's coming in puffs, now, the wind, and each one is a bit fainter nor the one as comed afore it? Lord bless you, it's nothing! We shall get a wet jacket, that's all; and if so be, sir, as you really do want a cruise down to Greenwich, come on, and Harry and me will soon manage it for you."

These words were very satisfactory to Todd. He had no objection in the world to its being rather a bad night on the river; but he certainly had a great objection to risking his life. Discomfort was a thing that gave him no concern. He knew well that that would pass away.

"If you are willing," he said, "let us, then, start at once, and I will not hold you to your bargain if the weather should happen to turn very bad. We can, in such a case, easily, I dare say, put in at some of the numerous stairs on one side or other of the river."

"There will be no need of that, sir," said the old waterman. "If you go, and if you choose to go all the way, we will put you on shore at Greenwich."

"How about London Bridge?" said the younger man, in a tone of some anxiety.

"Better than usual," said Jack. "It is just the time to shoot it nicely, for the tide will be at a point, and won't know exactly whether to go one way or the other."

"It's all right, then?"

"It is."

Todd himself had had his suspicions that the passage of old London Bridge would be one of no ordinary difficulty on such a night as that, but he knew that if the tide was at that point which the old man mentioned, that it might be passed with the most perfect safety, and it was a matter of no small gratification to him to hear from such a competent authority that such was the fact just then.

"Let us go at once," he said.

"All's right, sir. Our wherry is just at the foot of the stairs, here. I will pull her in, Harry."

The old man ran down the slippery stairs with the activity of a boy, and as Todd and Harry followed him, the latter said, in quite a confidential tone of voice--

"Ah, sir, you may trust to his judgment on anything that has anything to do with the river."

"I am glad to hear it."

"Yes, sir, and so am I. Now I thought I knew something, and I shouldn't have ventured to take you, or if I had, it would have been with rather a faint heart; but now that the old man, sir, says it's all right, I feel as comfortable as needs be in the matter."

By this time they had reached the foot of the steps, which was being laved by the tide, and there the old man had the boat safely in hand.

"Now for it, sir," he said. "Jump in."

Todd did so, and the younger waterman followed him. He and his aged companion immediately took their places, and Todd stretched himself in the stern of the little craft.

The rain now came down in absolute torrents as the boat was pushed off by the two watermen into the middle of the stream.

CLX. THE POLICE-GALLEY ON THE THAMES

What an anxious and protracted glance Todd cast around him when he found that he was fairly upon the river. How his eyes, with fox-like cunning, glistening like two lead-coloured stars, were here, and there, and everywhere, in the course of a few moments. Then he contrived to speak, as he thought, craftily enough.

"There are but few boats on the river."

"No, sir," said the young waterman. "It isn't everybody that cares to come on the water in such weather as this."

"No--no. But I have business."

"Exactly so, sir. That's it."

"Yes," added Todd, in quite a contemplative tone of voice, "the fact is, that I have just heard that at Gravesend there resides a family, with whom I was once intimate, but had lost sight of. They have, as I hear, dropped into poverty, amounting to destitution, and I could not rest until I had gone after them to relieve them."

"Did you say Gravesend?" said the old man.

"Why, yes; but I don't ask you to go so far. I will try and find a conveyance on land at Greenwich; but--if--you like to pull all the way to Gravesend, I don't mind paying, for I prefer the water."

"Couldn't do it," said the old man.

"Certainly not," said the young one.

Todd felt mortified that his plan of getting to Gravesend, by the aid of the boat, was thus put an end to; but he could not help feeling how very impolitic it would be to show any amount of chagrin upon such a subject, so he spoke as cheerfully as he could, merely saying--

"Well, of course, I don't want you to do it; I merely offer you the job, as I am so fond of a little boating, that I would not mind a few guineas more upon such an account."

"No use trying it," said the old man, sententiously. "There's several turns in the river, and we should be down one at this time before we could get there. Gravesend is quite another thing."

"So it is," said Todd.

He felt perfectly certain by the tone and the manner of the old man, that it would be of no use urging the matter any further; and the great dread he had of exciting suspicion that he was a fugitive, had the effect of making him as cautious as possible regarding what he said. In stern and moody silence, then, he reclined in the stern of the boat, while it cleaved through the black water; and, as the old boatman prophesied, the wind each moment went down until it left nothing but a freshness upon the surface of the water, which, although it was bitterly cold, in no way effected the progress of the boat.

But a slight rain now began to fall, and every moment the night got darker and darker still, until the lights upon the banks of the river looked like little stars afar off; and it was only when they got quite close to it, that they became aware of the proximity of Blackfriars Bridge. It was Todd that saw it first appearing like some gigantic object rising up out of the water to destroy them. He could not resist uttering an exclamation of terror, and then he added--

"What is it? Oh, what is it?"

"What--what?" said the young waterman, shipping his oars and looking rather terrified.

The old man gave his head a slight jerk as he said--

"I fancy it's Blackfriars."

"Oh, yes, yes," said Todd, with a feeling of great relief. "It's the bridge, of course--it's the bridge; but in the darkness of the night, it looked awful and strange; and as we approached it, it had all the effect as if it were something big enough to crush the world rising up out of the water.

"Ay--ay," said the old man. "I have seen it on all sorts of nights, and was looking out for it. It's all right. Easy with your larboard over there. That will do--there we go."

The boat shot under one of the arches of the old bridge, and for a moment, the effect was like going into some deep and horrible cavern, the lower part of which was a sea of ink.

Todd shuddered, but he did not say anything. He thought that after his affected raptures at sailing, that if he made any sort of remark indicative of his terrors at the passage of the bridge, they would sound rather inconsistent.

It was quite a relief when they had shot through the dim and dusky arch, and emerged again upon the broad open water; and owing to the terrible darkness that was beneath that arch, the night upon the river, after they had passed through it, did not seem to be nearly so black as it had been before, thus showing that, after all, most of our sensations are those of comparison, even including those dependant upon the physical changes of nature.

"This is cheering," said Todd. "It is lighter now upon the river. Don't you think it is?"

"Why," said the old man, "perhaps it is just a cloud or two lighter; but it's after coming through the arch that it makes the principal difference, I take it."

"Yes," said the other, "that's it; and the rain, to my thinking, will be a lasting one, for it comes down straight, and with a good will to continue. Don't you think so?"

The question was addressed to the old man, who answered it slowly and sententiously, keeping time with his words to the oars as they made a slight noise jerking in the rollocks.

"If it don't rain till sun-rise, just ask me to eat the old boat, and I'll do it!"

"That's settled," said the young waterman.

The weather, in so far as rain or not rain was concerned, was not to Todd a matter of much concern. So long as there was no stormy aspect of the elements to prevent him from speeding upon his journey, he, upon the whole, rather liked the darkness and the rain, as it probably acted as a better shield for his escape, and he rather chuckled than not on the idea that the rain would last. Besides, it was evident that as it fell, it smoothed the surface of the river, so that the oars dipped clear into the stream, and the boat shot on the better.

"Well--well," he said, "we can but get wet."

"That's all," said the old man, "and I hold it to be quite a folly to make a fuss about that. If you sit still, the rain will, of course, soak into your clothes; but if you go on sitting still, it will in time give you up as a bad job, and begin to run out again. So you have nothing, you see, to do, but take it easy, and think of something else all the while."

"That is very true, my friend," said Todd, in a kind and conciliatory tone; "but you get wet through in the process."

"Just so. Pull away."

The younger man, for the last five minutes, had glanced several times through one of his hands along the line of the surface of the river, and the injunction to pull away was probably on account of his having been a little amiss in that particular. The old man had spoken the words rather sharply than otherwise.

"Yes--yes," said the other. "I'll pull away; but there's another craft upon the river, in spite of the rain, and they are pulling away with a vengeance rather. Look, they're in our wake."

"It's no use me looking. You know that well enough. I ain't quite so good with my eyes as I was a matter of twenty years ago. I suppose it's the police-craft. Of late, you know, they have taken to cutting along at all times."

"Yes, it's them!"

Todd stooped in the boat, until his eyes went right along the line of the water's edge, and there he saw coming on swiftly a biggish bulky object, and as the oars broke the water, he could see that there were five or six of them on each side. It looked altogether like some great fish striking through the water with a number of strange-looking fins.

The coward heart of Todd smote him, as well it might, when he saw this sight. For a moment or two he sat bewildered, and he thought that he should faint in the stern of the boat, and then that nothing in the world could save him from capture, if that were in reality the police-boat. It was, perhaps, only the rain falling upon his face that revived him, as it came upon him with its cold, refreshed splash. To be sure he was well armed for one individual, but what could he do against some dozen of men? Suppose that he did shoot two or three of them, that would be but a poor recompense for his capture by the others. He was bewildered to know what to do. He spoke in a low, anxious tone,--

"Are you, from your knowledge of the river, quite sure that that is a police-boat?"

"Ah, to be sure."

"Do you, then, think likewise that that is upon our track? Answer me that. Answer it fairly."

"Our track!" said the old man, as he almost ceased rowing. "Hilloa! There's something more in this affair than meets the eye. It won't exactly pay us to be overhauled by the police, after a chase. Who and what are you, my friend? If you are afraid of the police-boat, we are not, and you ain't quite the sort of customer to suit us exactly, I should say."

"I have both their lives," thought Todd, as in the dark he felt for his pistols. "I have both their lives, and if they show any disposition to give me up, they shall not live another five minutes. I will shoot them both--cast their bodies into the river, and land myself at the first stairs I come to."

"Listen to me," he said, in a mild tone of voice. "It would only tire you, and, besides, it would take too long to tell why I have a fear of the police. But I have such a fear. I assure you, that I am quite innocent of what they accuse me. But until I can get from Hamburgh the only witness who can prove my innocence, I do not want to fall into the hands of my enemies. I implore you not to sacrifice me!"

"Humph!" said the old man, "What have you done?"

"Nothing--nothing! as Heaven is my witness!"

"But what do they say you have done?" said the young waterman.

"Ay!" said the other, "that's the question!"

"Why, they say that I was wrong in helping a poor lad, who certainly had done some wrong thing, to escape from the country; but then it would have broken his poor mother's heart if they had hanged him. It was for forgery only, and it was all owing to bad company he did it. Alas! I did not think it a crime to aid the poor boy to get away. What good would his death have done to any one?"

"Was that all?"

"Yes; that was all. But it appears in law, you see, a very serious offence to aid and abet, as they call it, a felon. Poor boy!--poor mother!"

"Oh, hang it, we won't give you up to the bloodhounds of the law for that," said the old man; "but, hark you, sir, it's out of the question that we two should be able to hold our way against the police-galley, with six young fresh rowers; so all we can do is to put you ashore somewhere, and then you can shift for yourself the best way you may. I don't see what else we can do for you."

"Nor I," said the young waterman; "and in a few moments it will be best to do that. Is there a stairs close at hand?"

"Not one," said the old man. "It's a done thing. We can't land you, except in the water, if that can be called landing you at all. I don't know what to be at."

"Oh, save me!" said Todd.

"But how can we?"

"Yes," said the young waterman, "there's one way of managing that, I think, will do it, and do it well, too."

"Oh, how can I thank you?"

"Don't mention it. Suppose we put him on to the first craft we come along-side of in the river, that is moored, and has got no one on board? It won't be noticed, like our putting into a landing would, you know. They would be sure to say we had put some one on shore. But if we just ease the boat for a moment as we pass some craft, our fare can scramble on board, and we can go right on, and let the police overtake us, and overhaul us in due course. I'll be bound that by this light there's not a man on board of yonder craft can take upon himself to say whether there's one, two, or three people in our wherry."

"Yes," said the old man, "that will do if anything will, and if that don't do, nothing will."

"It will do," said Todd; "it will do. I thank you from my heart for the suggestion. It will do well. All you have to do is to let me board the craft in the river, upon the side furthest removed from the police boat. Oh! you will have the prayers of the widow and the fatherless, for this kind act."

"Never mind about that. Pull away."

"And--and when the police-boat is past, will you then come and take me off again?"

"That's awkward," said the old man.

"We will, if we can," said the young one; "but don't depend upon us. We don't know, as yet, what the police may say to us. For all we know, they know more than we would wish them, of your being in our boat; and all we can say, then, is, that we put you ashore; but they may keep a watch upon us after that, and if they do, it will be only to give you up to them that we could push off to you."

"Yes--yes, I understand," said Todd. "I thank you, and will take my chance of all that may happen."

"You must."

"There's something a-head," said the old man. "What is it?"

"It's the pile-driving barge. They are mending up the bank of the river. I know that the men leave that all night, as there is nothing to take from it that any one can lift. Will you go on board that, sir?"

"Yes, yes," said Todd, "That will do."

"Be quick, then, about it," said the old man, "for they gain upon us."

"Boat a-hoi!" cried a voice over the river.

CLXI. THE POLICE-GALLEY'S FATE

Todd, when he heard that voice, quite sank down into the bottom of the boat, and felt as though his last hour were come.

"Don't answer," said the old man. "Pull away for the pile-driving barge as hard as you can."

"Oh, yes, pull--pull!" cried Todd. "Save me!"

"If you make that noise," added the old man, "we may as well be off at once, for the river, when it is as smooth as it is now, carries voices well."

"Boat a-hoi!" cried the voice again.

"We must answer them now," said the old waterman. "Ay, ay! Is it here? Boat a-hoi!"

"Ay, ay!" came the voice from the police-galley.

At that moment the two watermen succeeded in reaching the broad stern of the barge, in which was centred the pile-driving machinery, and the young man said to Todd--

"Now clamber in, and good luck attend you. If we don't come to you in the course of an hour, don't expect us, that's all."

Todd was not very young and supple in his joints, but the sense of present and serious danger has an effect upon every one, and in a moment he seized the side of the pile-driving barge, and drew himself in.

"All right," said the old man.

"Oh, yes--yes," said Todd, as he crouched down with his chin touching the side of the barge.

"Good-night, then."

"Good-night! You will come for me if you can?"

"Yes, but don't expect us. Pull, now, as hard as you can, and get out into the stream. Pull! pull!"

By the strenuous united exertions of the two men, the boat shot along at good speed, and soon got to a considerable distance from the barge in which Todd had taken refuge. It was then that the police-galley hoisted a strong light that shed a bright glare through the rain, and over the surface of the river.

"Am I saved?" said Todd. "Am I saved, or am I not?"

He sank quite down into the body of the barge. There was a sort of platform over one-half of it, and upon that platform he felt the mass of iron, weighing about a couple of hundredweight, or more, which was used for driving piles into the bed of the river, and which, when liberated from a height, and allowed to fall upon the end of the pile, comes with a most tremendous force.

That piece of metal so used is called "the monkey."

"They come--they come!" said Todd. "Oh, if they only chanced to see the boat place me here, I am lost. Quite lost! What will become of me, then, with nothing but the cold, cold river all round me? Death, indeed, now stares me in the face!"

Truly, the situation of Todd now was rather a critical one. There was no saying how far the men on board the police-galley might not think themselves justified in boarding any craft that was moored upon the river; and, indeed, if they were searching for him, and had really any idea that he was trying an escape by the Thames, it was highly improbable that they would omit to have a good look in the barge where he was. There was another great danger, too, that suddenly flashed across his mind, and drove him nearly mad.

"If the police, when they overtake the wherry," he thought, "should mention who it is they are in pursuit of, may not the two watermen at once, upon finding that their sympathy has been excited for me, declare where I am, and even aid in my apprehension?"

This idea, either because it was the last one that came into his head, or because it really was the one that seemed most full of real dangers, clung to him with desperation; and more than once the thought of ending all his miseries by a plunge into the river, crossed his mind. But it is not such men as Sweeney Todd who commit suicide.

"They come--they come!" was all he could now say.

The light from the police was, by the aid of a revolving reflector, capable of being cast pretty strongly in any direction that those who had the care and control of it chose; and for a moment it rested upon the barge where Todd was. He felt as if, at that moment, he could have crept right through the bottom of the barge, and taken refuge in the Thames.

The broad beam of light was then shifted off the barge on to the little wherry, which was at rest upon the water waiting for the approach of the police-galley.

And now, with vigorous sweeps of its six oars, that galley made its way right past the barge. Oh! what a relief it was that it went past! It did not follow that all danger was gone because the police-barge had gone past; but it was a sufficient proof that the glare of light they had sent in that direction, by the aid of the reflector, had not had the effect of discovering him to them.

"That is something," muttered Todd.

He then slowly permitted his eyes to peer over the side of the barge in order, as far as he could, to watch the interview that was about to take place between the police and the two watermen in the wherry where he had been so lately a passenger. Upon that interview, now, he thought that his fate depended.

"Hilloa!" cried one of the police. "Why did you not wait for us when we first called to you?"

"We did," said the old man, "as soon as we saw your light, and knew what you were; but there are so many jokes played off upon the river, that if we were to rest-oars to everybody who call--'Boat a-hoi,' we should have enough to do."

"Who are you?"

"A couple of regestered watermen. Here we are. You can overhaul us at once, if you like."

"You have no passenger?"

"No. I only wish we had. Times are very bad."

"Well, it's all right. But we are placed here by the orders of Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who suspects that the notorious murderer, Sweeney Todd, may try to escape by the Thames."

"Sweeney Todd!" cried the young waterman in a tone of horror. "What, the fellow that killed all the people in Fleet Street, and made them into pies?"

"The same."

"It's coming now," thought Todd. "It's coming now. They will tell him where I am."

The next words that were spoken, were uttered in a tone of voice that did not reach his ears. It was the old man who had spoken, and he did not utter his words so clearly as his younger companion; and although he tried his utmost to hear what he said, he could not possibly make it out, and he remained in a perfect agony of apprehension.

"Very well," said the officer in the police-barge, who had conducted the brief conversation. "It is a miserable night. Give way, my men. Steady there. Put the light out."

In an instant the light was lowered and extinguished, and the darkness that reigned upon the surface of the Thames was like a darkness that could be felt. It was difficult to conceive that it was not really tangible.

"Are they coming back?"

That was the question that Todd asked of himself, as he grasped, to steady himself, the heavy piece of iron that belonged to the pile-driving machine. He listened most intently, until it was positively painful to do so, and he began to fancy all sorts of strange noises in the air and from the water. In a few moments, though, an actual splashing sound put to route all imaginary noises, and he felt convinced that the boat with the police was slowly returning towards the barge in which he was concealed.

There was, to be sure, still a hope that they would pass it; but it was only a hope.

Oh, how awfully full of apprehension was each passing moment now. It might be that the police-galley was only going quietly back to its proper station, after overtaking the wherry; but then it might be quite otherwise, and the doubt was terrific. While that doubt lasted, it was worse than the reality of danger.

And now it was quite evident to the perception of Todd that the police-boat was close to the barge, and he heard a voice say--

"Is that the pile-driving barge?"

"Yes, sir," replied some one.

"And they leave it, I suppose, as usual?"

"No doubt, sir."

"Well, pull alongside, and a couple of you jump in and see if all is right. People leave their property exposed to all sorts of depredations, and then blame us for not looking after it. Mind how you go, my men. Don't run foul of the barge."

"No, sir. All's right."

From the moment that this conversation had begun, Todd had remained crouching down in the barge, like a man changed to stone. He heard every word--those words upon which hung, or seemed to hang, his life, and his grasp upon the massive piece of iron tightened.

The police-boat gradually advanced, and finally just grated against the side of the barge.

A sudden thought took possession of Todd. With a yell, like that of a mad-man, he, with preternatural strength, moved the heavy mass of iron, and in one moment toppled it over the edge of the barge.

Crash it went into the police-galley. There was then a shriek, and the men were struggling in the water. The piece of iron had gone right through the boat, staving to pieces. It filled and sank.

"Help--help!" cried a voice, and then all was still as the grave for a few moments.

"It is done," said Todd.

"Help! mercy!" said a voice again, and a dark figure rose up by the side of the barge, clinging to it.

Todd drew one of his pistols. He levelled it at the head of the figure. He was upon the point of pulling the trigger, when it struck him that the flash and the report might be seen and heard from the shore. The pistol was heavily mounted with brass at the butt-end of it.

"Down!" said Todd. "Down!"

He struck the clambering, half-drowned man upon the head, and with a shriek he fell backwards into the water and disappeared. In another moment Todd felt a pair of arms twining round him, and a voice cried--

"Murderer, I have you now! You cannot shake me off!"

Todd made an effort, but, in truth, those wet and clinging arms held to him like fate.

"Fool," he said. "You will find drowning the easiest death for you to meet."

"Help--help! murder!" shouted his assailant.

The pistol was still in Todd's grasp. With a devilish ingenuity, he thrust the barrel of it under his arm and felt that it touched his assailant. He pulled the trigger, and then he and the man who held him fell to the bottom of the barge together.

Todd kicked and plunged until he got uppermost, and then he felt for the throat of the other, and when he got a clutch of it he held it with a gripe of iron.

"Fool," he said. "Did you think that one driven to such desperation as I am, would be conquered so easily?"

There was no reply. Todd lifted up the head of the man, and it hung limply and flaccidly from the neck. He was quite dead. The pistol-bullet had gone through his heart, and death was instantaneous.

"Another one," said Todd, as he sprang to his feet and stood upon the dead body. "Another one sacrificed to my vengeance. Let those only interfere with me who are tired of life."

He placed his hand to his ear now, to listen if there were any indications of others of the boat's crew stirring; but all was still. No sound, save the lazy ripple of the tide past the old barge on which he was, met his ears.

"It is over," he said. "It is quite over now. That one great danger is past now."

The rain began to fall quicker, and splashed upon the half deck of the barge. Todd felt that he was thoroughly wet through; but all minor ills he could now laugh at, that he had escaped the one great peril of capture. He felt that his life had hung upon a thread, and that only the recent accident had saved him; for to be captured, was to him equivalent to death.

"All gone!" he whispered. "They are all gone! Well--well! They would have dragged me to a prison, and then to a scaffold! Self-defence is a sound principle, and for that I have fought!"

A sudden gust of wind got up at that moment, and came howling past Todd, and ruffling upon the surface of the river; but all was still around the barge. There was now no cry for mercy--no shout for help--no bubbling shriek of some swimmer, who was yet sinking to death, as the waters closed over him.

"Yes," said Todd, as his long hair blew out like snakes in the wind, "I am alone here now. They are all dead, and I could do it again if it had to be done."

CLXII. ANOTHER BOAT

It seemed now as though the lull in the weather was over; for after that one gust of wind, there came others; and in the course of a very short time, indeed, the surface of the water was much agitated, and such a howling noise was kept up by the wind, that Todd thought every moment that he heard the voices of his foes.

"What am I to do now?" he said. "Oh, what am I to do? I dare not wait here until daylight. That would be destruction. What is to become of me?"

He came round the sides of the barge with the hope that some wherry had been moored to it, but he found that that hope was a fallacious one indeed. There was the gloomy-looking vessel moored far out in the stream, with him as its only passenger.

Any one without Todd's load of guilt upon his soul, and upon better terms with human nature, could soon have got assistance, for the distance from the shore was by no means so great but that his voice must have been heard had he chosen to exert it; but that would not do for him. He dreaded that his presence upon the barge should be known, and yet he alike dreaded that the morning's light should come shiningly upon him, without any boat coming to take him off.

To be sure, the two men who had brought him there had made a half-promise to come to his aid, but he felt certain he could not depend upon their doing so. The look with which they had regarded him upon the doubt, even, that he might be so frightful a criminal as he really was, was sufficient to convince him that while that doubt remained they would not return.

"And what," he said, "is to dissipate the doubt? Nothing--nothing! But anything may confirm it. Accidents always tell for the truth--never to its prevention, and so I am lost--lost--quite lost."

The bitterness of death seemed almost to be upon the point of assailing Todd. He could fancy that spirits of the murdered shrieked and wailed around him, as the wind whistled by his trembling frame.

In this wretched state an hour passed, and then Todd thought he heard a voice.

"What is that?" he said. "Oh, what is that?"

He inclined his head as low down to the edge of the water as he could get it, and heard distinctly some one singing to the stroke of a pair of oars, as they were deliberately dipped into the stream. The voice sounded like that of some young lad, and a hope of succour sprung up in the breast of Todd.

In the course of a few moments he became perfectly convinced that the boat was approaching the barge, and he shrunk down so that by being prematurely seen he might not alarm the boy who was rowing down the stream. The song continued, and it was quite evident from the manner in which the boy sung it, that he was quite delighted with his own powers in that line.

"I must speak to him," thought Todd. "If I let him pass there may not be another chance, now. I must speak to this boy, and speak to him freely too. He comes--he comes."

It was not so dark but that Todd could see pretty well the surface of the river, and presently in dusky outline he was conscious of the approach of a wherry in which was a boy, and he could see how the boy moved his head to and fro to the tune that he was amusing himself with.

"Hilloa!" cried Todd.

Now Todd in this "Hilloa!" had for once in a way tuned his voice to such a gentle pleasant sound, that it was quite a wonder to hear it, and he was rather himself surprised at the manner in which he managed it so as not to be at all alarming.

The boy stopped rowing and looked about him. It was evident at the moment that he could not tell where the sound came from.

"Hilloa!" said Todd, again.

"Ay--ay!" said the boy; "where are you?"

"Here, my dear," said Todd, "on board of the barge, bless you. How are you, my fine fellow--eh?"

"Oh, I'm pretty well. Who are you?"

"Why, don't you know me? I'm Mr. Smith. How is your father, my lad--eh?"

"Oh, father's all right enough; but I didn't know as he knowed a Mr. Smith at all."

"Oh, yes, he does. Everybody knows a Mr. Smith. Come on, you can give me a lift to shore off the barge here. This way. Just step up to the side and I'll step into your pretty little wherry. And so your father is quite well--eh, my fine lad? Do you know I was afraid he had caught a little cold, and really have been quite uneasy about him."

"Have you?" said the boy, as he pulled up to the side of the barge. "Where do you want to go to?"

"Oh, anywhere you happen to be going, that's all, my fine lad. How you do grow, to be sure!"

"But how came you here, out in the river on the dredging-barge? Do you belong to her?"

"To be sure I do. I am Mr. Deputy Inspector Dredger Smith, and am forced to come and superintend the barge, you see; but my boat that I sent to shore for something, has not come back, and I am getting cold, for I am not so young as you are, you know."

"Why, I don't suppose you is, sir," said the boy; "but I'll put you ashore, if you like."

"Thank you, I should like."

"Get in, then, sir. All's right. I'll hold on to the barge. Easy--easy with you, sir. That will do. Which side of the river, sir, would you like to be put ashore at, if you please?"

The boy was evidently deeply impressed with the importance of the title of Deputy Inspector Dredger, and was quite deferential to Todd.

How delighted was Todd to get off the barge! It seemed to him like a reprieve from death.

"Which way is the tide, boy?" he said.

"Running down, sir, but not fast."

"That will do. I will trouble you, then, to row with it as comfortably and as fast as you can.

"But I'm going, sir, to Westminster, to meet father. I can't go down the river, please sir. I would if I could. I said I would put you on shore on either side you like, and that's a waste of time, for the tide is getting fuller every minute, and it will be a hard pull against it, as it is. I can't go down the river, so don't ask me, sir; indeed I can't."

"Indeed?"

"No, sir. If I put you ashore, you will find lots of watermen who will be glad enough of the job."

"What's your name?"

"Bill White, sir."

"Very well, Bill White. I dare say you have ears at your age, and guess that to have one's brains blown out is not one of the most agreeable things in the world, and perhaps you know a pistol when you see one. This that I take from my pocket and hold at your head is carefully loaded, and if you don't pull away at once with the tide down the river, I will scatter your brains into the river, and throw your lifeless carcass after them. Do you understand that, Mr. Bill White?"

Todd uttered these words in such a tone of fiendish malignity, and glared into the eyes of the poor boy so, that he nearly drove him out of his wits, and it was as much as his trembling hands could do to hold the oars. For the space of about half a minute he could only glare at Todd with his eyes and mouth as wide open as they could be.

"Speak, devil's whelp!" cried Todd. "Why do you not answer me?"

"Murder!" cried the boy.

Todd caught him by the throat, and if the oars had not been well up in the rollocks, they must have gone overboard.

"Another such cry," said Todd, "and it is the last you shall have the opportunity of making in this world."

"Oh, no--no--"

"But I say yes. Listen to me! If you row me as I direct you, I will not only do you no harm, but I will pay you well. If you still obstinately refuse, I will murder you, and murder your father likewise, upon the first opportunity."

"I will row you down the river, sir. Oh, yes, I will do it. Indeed I will, sir."

"Very well. Take your oars, and pull away."

The boy was in such a state of trembling, that although it was quite evident he did his best to obey Todd, it was with the greatest difficulty that he could pull a stroke, and it took him some minutes to get the boat's head round to the tide.

"Be careful," said Todd. "If I see you willing, I make any allowance for you; but if I fancy, for a moment, that there is any idea of not obeying me, I will kill you!"

"I am obeying you, sir."

"Very well. Now, listen attentively to what I am about further to say to you, Bill White. You can pull away while you listen. We are going now very well with the stream."

"Yes, sir."

"We shall, no doubt, pass many wherries, and you may think it a very good thing to call out for help, and to say that I threatened to murder you, and all that sort of thing; but so soon as you do, you die. I will hold this pistol in my hand, and whenever we come near a wherry, my finger will be upon the trigger, and the muzzle at your head. You understand all that, I hope, Bill White?"

"Of course I do, sir."

"Go on then."

Todd reclined back in the stern of the boat, and kept his eyes fixed upon the boy, down whose cheeks the tears rolled in abundance, as he pulled down the stream. Having the tide fully in its favour, the wherry, with very little labour, made great way; and Todd, as he saw the dawn slowly creeping on, began to congratulate himself upon the cleverness with which he had escaped from the barge.

The river began to widen--the pool was left behind, and the dull melancholy shore of Essex soon began to show itself, as the tide, by each moment increasing in strength, carried the light boat swiftly along its undulating surface, with its frightfully wicked load.

Todd thought it would be as well now to say something of a cheering character to the boy. Modulating his voice, he said--

"Now, you see, my lad, that by obeying me you have done the very best thing you possibly could, and when I think proper to land, I will give you a guinea for yourself."

"I don't want it," said the boy.

"You don't want it?"

"No; and I won't have it."

"What do you mean by that, you idiot of a boy? How dare you tell me to my face that you won't have what I offer you?"

"I don't see," said Bill White, "how that ought to put you in a passion. All you want is to make me row you down the river. Well, you have made me, cos I don't want to be shot down like a mad dog, of course; but I won't be paid for doing what I don't like--not I."

"Well, it don't matter to me. You may please yourself about that; I am just as well pleased at being rowed for nothing as if I paid for it. You can please yourself in that particular; but it would have been better for you to have taken what I chose to give you than to have refused it."

The boy made no answer to this speech, but rowed on in sullen silence. He no longer wept now, and it was evident to Todd that indignation was rapidly taking the place of fear in his heart. Todd even began to debate with himself whether it would not be better to throw him into the river and take the oars himself, and trust to his own skill to conduct the boat with the stream to Gravesend, than was the risk of any sudden act of the boy's that might bring danger upon him.

It would have been but a poor satisfaction to Todd to have shot the boy at the moment possibly of his calling for help, when the sight of such an act would be sufficient to insure his capture, without people troubling themselves about what he had done or not done before.

These were considerations that began to make Todd very unhappy indeed.

"Well, Bill White," he said; "as your father, no doubt, expects you by this time, and I daresay you will be glad enough to go back and forget all about the little disagreement that we have had, I will get you to land me at once at those stairs yonder, and then we will shake hands and part."

"No we won't."

"Ah?"

"I say we won't shake hands. I'm willing enough that we should part, but as for the shaking hands, I won't do it; and I'm quite willing to pull in to the stairs."

As he spoke he inclined the head of the boat to a little landing-place, where a few wherries were moored.

CLXIII. ANOTHER POLICE-GALLEY

"Bill White," said Todd.

"Well, what now?" said the boy, in a sulky tone.

Todd pointed to the pistol, and merely uttered the one word--"Remember!" and then, with a horrible misgiving at his heart, he let the lad pull into the landing-place. Some half-dozen lazy-looking fellows were smoking their pipes upon the dirty beach, and Todd, concealing the pistol within his capacious cuff, sprang on the shore. He turned and looked at the boy, who slowly pushed off, and gained the deep water again.

"He is afraid," thought Todd, "he is afraid, and will be too glad to get away and say nothing."

Bill White's actions were now not a little curious, and they soon attracted the observation of all the idlers on the beach, and put Todd in a perfect agony of apprehension. When the boy was about half a dozen boats' length from the shore, he shipped one of his oars, and then, with his disengaged hand, he lifted from the bottom of the boat an old saucepan, which he held up in an odd, dodging kind of way before his face, with an evident idea that if Todd fired the pistol at him, he could interrupt the bullet in that way. Then, in a loud clear voice, he cried--

"Hilloa! Don't have anything to do with that Mr. Smith. He has been threatening to shoot me, and he has got a pistol in his hand. He's a bad 'un, he is. Take him up! That's the best thing you can do. He's well-nigh as bad as old Todd the murderer of Fleet Street, that they can't catch. Take him up. I advises you. Blaze away, old curmudgeon."

Todd's rage was excessive, but he thought that the best plan would be to try to laugh the thing over, and with a hideous affectation of mirth, he cried out--

"Good-by, Bill--good-by. Remember me to your father, and tell him all the joke."

"It wasn't a joke," said Bill White.

"Ha! ha!" laughed Todd. "Well--well, I forgive you, Bill--I forgive you. Mind you take my message to your aunt, and tell her I shall be at the chapel on Wednesday."

"Oh, go to the deuce with you," said Bill, as he put down the saucepan upon finding that his late fare was not disposed to carry his threat of shooting him into effect. "You are an old rogue, that you are, and I daresay you have done something that it would be well worth while to take you up for."

With this, Bill began vigorously to pull away against the stream, puffing and blowing, and looking as indignant as he possibly could. Todd turned with a sigh to the men at the little landing, and affecting to wipe a tear from his left eye, he said--

"You would not believe, gentlemen, that that boy could say such things to his poor old uncle, and yet you wouldn't believe if I were to tell you the pounds and pounds that boy has cost me and his poor aunt. He don't behave well to either of us; but we are as fond of him as possible. It's in our natures to love him, and we can't help it."

"Lor!" said one of the men.

"You looks tender-hearted," said another.

The others all laughed at this, and Todd thought it was as well to seem as if he thought that some very capital joke was going on, so he laughed too.

"I was thinking," he said, when the merriment had a little subsided, "I was thinking of going right on to Gravesend. What do you say to taking me now, a couple of you? There's the tide nicely with you all the way, and I am always a liberal enough paymaster."

"What will you give?" said one with a voice like a cracked trumpet with a bad cold.

"Why, name your price, and I shall not say no to it."

"What shall we take the gemman for, Bill?" said this man to another, who was smoking a short pipe.

"A rum 'un," was the reply of Bill.

"Don't be a hass. I didn't go for to ask you what sort of indiwiddle he was, but what we'd take him to Gravesend for."

"Oh, that's the caper, is it?"

"Yes it is, idiot."

"Well--fifteen bob and a tanner."

"Will that do, sir?" said the other to Todd, who thought that it would look bad to acquiesce too readily in the amount, so he said--

"I will give the fifteen shillings."

"Very good. We won't go to loggerheads about the tanner; so come along, sir, and we'll soon get you to Gravesend, with this tide a-running all the way there, as comfortably as it can, all of a purpose."

Todd was well enough pleased to find that these two men owned the longest and strongest-looking wherry that was at the landing-place. He ensconced himself snugly enough in the stern of the boat and they put aside their pipes, and soon pushed off into the middle of the stream.

"Once more," thought Todd, "once more I am on the road to escape; and all may yet be well."

The two men now set to work with the oars in earnest. They felt, that as they were paid by the job, the best way was to get it over as quickly as possible; and, aided by the tide, it was perfectly astonishing what progress they made down the river.

Todd every now and then cast a long and anxious glance behind him; and presently he saw a boat shooting along, by the aid of six rowers, at great speed, and evidently turning into the little landing-place from where he had just come. His eyesight was either sharpened by the morning light, or fancy deceived him, for he thought he saw the boy, Bill White, seated in the stern of the boat.

Todd was in an agony. He knew not whether to attract the attention of the two watermen to the large boat with all its rowers, so that he might get an opinion from them concerning it or not; and then again, he thought that at the moment, there would be a good chance of working upon the cupidity of the men, if any real danger should befall him of capture.

"I say, Bill," said one.

"Well, say it."

"There's one of the police officer's gone into the Old Stairs. There's something afloat this here morning."

"Ah! They are always at some manoeuvre or another. Pull away. It ain't no business of our'n."

Todd could almost have hugged the man for the sentiment he uttered; and how he longed to echo those two words, "pull away;" but he was afraid to do so, lest, by any seemingly undue anxiety just then for speed upon his part, he should provoke the idea that the police-boat was as interesting to him as it really was.

Poor, wretched, guilty Todd surely suffered a hundred times the pangs of death during his progress down the river; and now he sat in the stern of the boat, looking as pale as death itself.

"You don't seem very well," said one of the men.

"Oh, yes--yes, I am quite well, I thank you."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it; for you look just as if you had been buried a month, and then dug up again."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Todd,--what a hideous attempt at a laugh it was!--"that is very good."

"Oh, lor! do you laugh that way when you are at home? 'cos if you do, I should expect the roof to tumble in with fright, I should."

"How funny you are," said Todd. "Pull away."

He did venture to say, "pull away!" and the men did pull with right good-will, so that the landing-place, and the long police-boat that was at it, looked just like two specks by the river-side; and, indeed it would have been a long pull and a strong one to catch Todd's wherry.

The murderer breathed a little more freely.

"How far have we got to go now?" he said.

"Oh, a matter of nine miles yet."

"And how long will it take you?"

"About one hour and a quarter, with the tide running at such a pace as it is. There's some wind, too, and what there is, is all with us, so we cut along favourably. What are they doing away yonder, Bill?"

"Where?" said Bill.

"Right in our wake, there. Oh, they are getting up a sail. I'll be hanged if they ain't, and pulling away besides! Why, what a hurry they must be in, to be sure, to get down the river. I never knew them do that before."

Todd looked along the surface of the water, and he saw the police-boat coming along at such a rate, that the spray was tossed up in the air before her prow in millions of white particles.

A puff of smoke came from her side, and a slight sharp report rung upon the morning air. A musket or a pistol had been discharged on board of her.

"What's the meaning of that, Bill?"

"I can tell you," said Todd, sharply, before Bill had done moving his head from side to side, which was a habit of his preparatory to replying to any very intricate question. "I can tell you easily."

"What is it then?"

"You pull away, and I'll tell you. You see that boat with the sail and the six rowers there?"

"Yes, yes!"

"And you heard them fire a gun?"

"To be sure."

"Well, pull away. It's enough to make a cat laugh; but it was Mr. Anthony Strong that fired that gun."

"How very droll? But what did he do it for?"

"Well, pull away, and I'll tell you. You must know that Mr. Anthony Strong, who is in command of that police-boat, is my brother-in-law, and he laid a wager with me, that he would start from the pier at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, at daybreak this morning, and get to Gravesend before me, if I started from Blackfriars, and did the best I possibly could to get on that money and men could do for me. I allowed that he was to take all his six rowers with him, and hoist his sail if he liked, and I was to take no more than two watermen at a time. When he saw me, he was to fire a gun, you see; and the wager is for twenty pounds and a dinner. I should like to win it, and so, if you can fairly beat him, with the start you have, which is above a mile--"

"It's above two," said Bill, "Water's deceiving."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it; and I was going to say, I would stand five guineas!"

"You will, old fellow?"

"I will; and to convince you of it, here they are, and I will place them in your hands at once; so now, I do hope that you will pull away like devils!"

"Won't we! If Mr. Anthony Strong, with all his sail and his six hands, catches us on this side of Gravesend, I'll give him leave to skin me and eat me at the dinner that he would win. No, no! if we don't know the currents, and the shortcuts of the river a little bit better than ever a captain of police-boat that ever lived, or that ever will live, why you may set me down for a frog or a Frenchman, which, I take it, are much of a muchness."

"They is," said the other.

Todd shouted with delight, and it was real now the wild laughter that shook his frame, for he began to think he was safe. The confident tone in which the waterman spoke, had quite convinced him that he could do what he said. With a perfect confidence in the power of his two watermen, he looked at the police wherry without any alarm, and the foam that it dashed up as it came bounding on, did not seem to fall coldly upon his breast, as it had seemed to do before.

"Two miles," he said. "That's a long start."

"In a stern chase," said Bill, "it's half of the blessed world to get over is them two miles."

"Yes, yes--exactly; and I shall beat Mr. Anthony Strong, I feel now. You see, my little nephew, Bill White, gave me the first start from Blackfriars; but I knew I could not depend upon him all the way, so I--There's another gun. Hal ha! Mr. Strong, it won't do."

"Well," said Bill, with a look of what he, no doubt, thought was great cleverness, "if I didn't know as this was a bit of fun between Mr. Anthony Strong and you, sir, I should have said that them guns was for us to lie-to."

"That's just what he wants," cried Todd.

"Does he?"

"Yes. He thinks that he will frighten whoever is rowing into a dead stop, when they find a police-galley firing guns; but I think he is mistaken in this matter, my friends."

"Rather!" said Dick, as he bent his back to the oars, and pulled away like a giant.

How the boat shot through the water! and yet to Todd's apprehension, the police-galley gained upon him. Of course, he told himself that it must gain with its sail and six rowers; but the question was, how much it would gain in the seven or eight miles they had got to go? With what a feverish action Todd licked his lips.

CLXIV. TODD GOES BACK ON LAND

"Oh, quicker--quicker!" cried Todd.

"That would be difficult," said Bill. "But I rather think as we is a doing of it something out of the common way."

Bang! went another gun from the pursuing boat, and this time there certainly was the greatest possible hint given by the police-galley that it was in earnest, for a bullet struck the water not above a couple of boats' length from Todd's wherry.

"Well," said Bill, "that may be firing, but I'll be hanged if it is at all pleasant."

"Oh, heed it not," said Todd; "heed it not. They would have such a laugh at both me and you, if by any means they could frighten you into stopping, and so giving me up--no, no, I mean giving up the wager. What am I saying?"

"I tell you what it is," said Bill, "to my mind this is a very odd sort of wager, and if you have no sort of objection to it, sir, we will just pull to the next stairs, and put you ashore. If you don't like that, why, I rather think you must be content to lose your wager."

"You will desert me? Oh, no--no. Surely you will not, and cannot. You have but to name your price, and you shall have it."

"No. That won't do. You must land now."

Todd looked nervously along the bank of the river, and he saw a little miserable landing-place, towards which the men now began to urge the boat. He thought then that if he could get anything like a start of his pursuers on the shore, all might yet be well. "I could get across the country to Gravesend, and if once there, I might find some vessel to take me off."

"Pull to shore, then," he said; "I will take my chance. Pull to shore at once, as swiftly as you possibly can."

When the boat's head was turned towards the shore, it was pretty evident that the police-galley was much more intent upon getting to Todd than to Gravesend, for the rowers in it on the instant turned the boat's head in the same direction, and it became then, truly, a case of life and death to Todd.

Vigorously as the boatmen worked, the little wherry was quickly so close to the shore, that Todd saw he could land by a scramble through the water.

"There is your money," he cried, to the men; "and for what you have done, I thank you with all my heart. Good-by to you."

He sprang over the side of the boat, although by so doing he was up to his knees in the river; but that he heeded not, and in the course of half a minute he had scrambled to the shore, and going at a great rate up the little steps at the landing-place, he gained the road and began to run at great speed.

The two boatmen were not a little amazed at this proceeding, and Bill said,--

"I say, I rather think that this is another queer sort of a piece of work than a wager; but if we don't wish to get ourselves into trouble, we must stick to it tooth and nail, that that was what we believed it to be."

"Ay," said the other. "I believe you, we must, or else we shall get into limbo for our share of the affair, and no mistake. Here they come, hand over hand, and they don't look very well pleased, either."

The rowers in the police-galley had made such strenuous exertions to reach the landing-place quickly, that they were really not far behind the wherry that had conducted Todd there, and the first thing that was done was to lay hold of the wherry with a boat-hook, and drag it alongside of them. Then the officer in command of the police-boat called out in a voice hoarse with rage--

"What do you mean, you infernal rascals, by running off in this way, when you know by our flag that we were the police? But you will have leisure to repent of it in jail. Clap handcuffs upon them both, my men."

"Why, what have we done?" said Bill. "You will win your wager yet, I should say, if you look sharp about it."

"Wager? What wager? What do you mean?"

"Why, the gentleman told us that he had a wager with you about who was to get to Gravesend first, and he was to take what means he could, and you were to cut along in the galley, and there was to be quite a grand dinner on the strength of it."

"Oh, nonsense--nonsense."

"Well, that's what he told me, and that's why we pulled away so for; but if so be as it ain't, we are sorry enough, for why should we get into trouble about a man we never saw before, and ain't likely to see again?"

"This excuse won't serve you."

"But who is he, and what's he done?"

"For all we know to the contrary, he is the infamous Todd, the murderer."

"What? The fellow that made the people into pies! Oh, if we had only had half a quarter of an idea of that! But, hold--I saw the way he went. It was along that chalky bit of road. If you really want to nab him, why do you waste time here talking to us? Come on shore, and I will go with you, and we will soon have him now, if that will do any good."

The officer saw at once that this was the only mode of proceeding that promised him the least chance of capturing the fugitive, whether he were Todd or not; for, after all, the persons in the police-galley had nothing like positive evidence that it was Todd of whom they were in pursuit. A couple of officers were left in the charge of the boats, and the whole of the remainder of them landed along with Bill, and ran up the steps to the road along which Todd had been seen to run.

They did not know, however, what a wily, cunning personage they had to deal with.

When Todd found himself in such comparatively close quarters with the enemy, he felt perfectly sure that to continue scampering along the high road was not the most likely way to escape. If he were to succeed in eluding his foes, he felt that it must be by finesse, and not by speed.

With this idea, he did not go along the road for a greater distance than sufficed to bring him to a hedge, across which he then instantly made his way, and then turning, he crouched down and crept back towards the other direction. On the side of the hedge where he was now, there was not a very pleasant kind of field-drain, but Todd's circumstances did not permit of his being very particular, and getting right down into the drain, he crept along, stooping so low that only a portion of his head and back were visible above it.

This was certainly the most likely way to baffle his pursuers, who were not very likely to think that he had so rapidly doubled upon them. Knowing now that his destination was Gravesend, they would in all probability run along the road after him, or if they took to the fields it would still be with the idea that he was ahead of them.

After proceeding for some distance, Todd thought it would be just as well if he were to reconnoitre the foe a little, and, accordingly, he raised his head sufficiently to enable him just to peep through the hedge, and when he did so, he found that he was on sufficiently high ground to command a view of the road, and the landing-place, and the river. To his immense consternation, he saw the police advancing rapidly towards him.

"Lost! lost!" said Todd, as he sunk down into the ditch, with a conviction that he was all but taken. He felt in his pocket for a pistol, and getting one out, he placed it to his ear, and there held it, for he had made up his mind now, to shoot himself, rather than be dragged back to prison, from where another escape would be quite out of the question.

"They shall not take me. I will die--I will die," he murmured; and then he concentrated all his attention to the act of listening to the proceedings of the police.

They came on in a straggling kind of way from the landing-place, and the principal officer cried out--

"You, Jenkins, get up the first tree you come to, and take a long look about you. The country is flat enough, and he will find it no easy matter to hide from us, I should say."

"Oh, it's all right, sir," said another voice. "We have him as safe as if he were lying at the bottom of our boat with the darbies on him; and as far as I can judge of him, sir, I should say it is Todd."

"I hope so," said the officer. "It will not be a bad morning's work for you all, my lads, if it is."

Not very far off from where Todd lay concealed in the ditch, only, fortunately for him, on the other side of the road, was a stunted tree, rising about twenty feet from the barren soil, and upon this the man, who was named Jenkins, made his way carefully, and took a long look all round him, and particularly in advance.

"Do you see him?" said the officer commanding the party.

"No, sir, I don't."

"Then he is hiding somewhere, and the only plan is to go right on, and hunt him up if he is among the hedges. Come on, now, at once. We must have him. He cannot possibly escape us now."

Todd, upon this, again gave himself up for lost; but, as luck would have it, although two of the men got over the hedge, and began looking about, and dashing their cutlasses into the hedge, the officer called to them--

"Oh, he never came so far up the road. You don't suppose he was goose enough to come back again? If he is hiding, it will be more likely by the time he lost breath, I should say. Come now; I saw him myself get past yonder little chestnut trees, and the white cottage."

Upon this the men ran on, and Todd felt, for the present, at all events, he was saved.

"The idiots!" said Todd, as he looked up and listened. "The idiots!--So they think that I am as far gone in stupidity as they are, and that I have nothing to do, but to run on until they, younger and more fleet of foot, overtake me."

He crawled out of the ditch, and a most pitiable figure he was when he did so. In his anxiety to hide himself completely, he had, in fact, lain himself down comfortably enough, as far as regarded the softness of the place, right at the bottom of the ditch, and had only, in the midst of a thick growth of rank weeds, kept his face above the water.

"This is horrible," he said; "and they will be back soon, too. What on earth am I to do?"

He heard a loud shout at this moment, and he raised his head sufficiently to see along the road to observe the actions of the officers. He found that they had paused, and were talking to a man on horseback, who was pointing in the very direction where he (Todd) stood, or rather crouched. The idea that this man had from some eminence, he being mounted, too, seen him (Todd) hide in the ditch, at once crossed his mind, and from that moment he felt that he was not in the safety that he had fondly hoped he was.

To remain where he was, with such an idea prevailing in his mind, would have been madness and, accordingly, crawling down close to the hedge, he ran along, splashing, like some gigantic water-fowl, in the ditch, until he came to a thickly-planted fence, at right angles with the hedge that bordered the road. There he was forced to come to a stand-still.

The fence was composed of the common privet, so that there would have been neither difficulty nor danger in forcing his way through it; but what he might encounter upon the other side was a subject of consideration well worth his attention.

Through the interstices of the foliage he could see that there was a pretty and well-kept mixed garden on the other side. Roses and other flowers grew in quite loving companionship with all kinds of culinary vegetables, and the little plot of ground was well shadowed by some half-dozen fruit trees. A part of the ground was made into a kind of lawn, and upon that lawn was a child about one year old crawling about, and amusing itself by making weak efforts to pull up the grass.

While Todd was observing these things, a woman came out of a little white-washed cottage that was at the farther end of the garden, with some clothes to hang up to dry. The woman spoke to the child, and from the tone in which she did so, it was quite evident she was the mother of it.

Todd waited until she had hung the clothes up that she had brought out into the garden, and then when she went into the house for more, he burst his way through the hedge, and with a resolution and firmness that nothing but the exigencies of his situation could possibly have endowed him with, he took the child up in his arms and walked slowly across the lawn towards the cottage.

The woman, with another heap of wet clothes in her arms, met him, and uttered a loud scream.

"Peace," said Todd. "Peace, I say. There is no danger unless you make some. Listen to me, and I will tell you how you can do a service to me, and spare your child."

"Help! help! Murder! Thieves!" cried the woman.

Todd took one of his pistols from his pocket, and held it to the head of the child.

"Another word," he said, "and I fire!"

The woman fell upon her knees, and holding up her hands in the attitude of prayer, she said--

"Oh, have mercy! Kill me, if you must take a life, but spare the child!"

"The child's life," said Todd, "is in your own hands. Why do you seek to destroy me?"

"I do not--I do not, indeed."

"Then, peace, and do not cry out for help. Do not shout that dreadful word 'Murder!' for that will destroy me. I am hunted by my fellow-men. I am a poor proscribed wretch, and all I ask of you is that you will not betray me."

"You will spare my child?"

"I will. Why should I harm the little innocent? I was once myself a little child, and considered to be rather a beauty."

As Todd said this, he made one of his most hideous faces, so that the woman cried out with terror, and tried to snatch the child from him, but he held it with a firm grasp.

CLXV. TODD HIDES IN A CUPBOARD

"It is in vain," said Todd; "my safety is wound up now with the safety of this little one. If you would save it, you will save me."

"Oh, no, no. Why should it be so? I cannot save you."

"You can, I think. At all events, I will be satisfied if you make the effort to do so. I tell you I am pursued by the officers of the law. It does not matter to you what I am, or who I am, or what crime it is that they lay to my charge; your child's life is as dear to you in any case. Hide me in the cottage, and deny my being seen here, and the child shall live. Betray me, and as sure as the sun gives light, it dies."

"Oh, no, no, no!"

"But, I say, yes. Your course is easy. It is all but certain that my prosecutors will come to this cottage, as it is the only habitation on the route that I have taken. They will ask you if you have seen such a man as I am, and they will tell you that you may earn a large reward by giving such information as may deliver me into the hands of justice; but what reward--what sum of money would pay you for your child's life?"

"Oh, not all the world's worth!"

"So I thought; and so you will deny seeing me, or knowing ought of me, for your child's sake? Is it agreed?"

"It is--it is! God knows who you are, or what you have done that the hands of your fellow creatures should be raised against you; but I will not betray you. You may depend upon my word. If you are found in this place, it shall not be by any information of mine."

"Can you hide me?"

"I will try to do so. Come into the cottage. Ah! what noise is that? I hear the tread of feet, and the shouts of men!"

Todd paused to listen. He shook for a moment or two; and then, with a bitter tone, he said--

"My pursuers come! They begin to suspect the trick that I have played them!--they now know--or think they know, that I have turned upon my route. They come--they come!"

"Oh, give me the child! I swear to you that I will hide you to the utmost of my means; but give me the child!"

"Not yet."

The woman looked at him in an agony of tears.

"Listen to me," she said. "If they discover you it will not be my fault, nor the fault of this little innocent--you feel that! Ah! then tell me upon what principle of justice can you take its life?"

"I will be just," said Todd. "All I ask of you is, to hide me to the best of your ability, and to keep secret the fact of my presence here. If, after you have done all that, you still find that I am taken, it will be no fault of yours. I do not ask impossibilities of any one, nor do I threaten punishment against you for not performing improbable feats. Come in--come in at once! They come--they come! Do you not hear them now?"

It was quite evident now that a number of persons were approaching, and beating the bushes as they came on. The tread of a horse's feet, too, upon the road convinced Todd that among his foes, now, was the mounted man whom he had seen, and whom he thought he saw point to him as he lay crouching down behind the hedge, half hidden in the ditch.

With the little child still in his arms, he rushed into the cottage, and the woman followed him, wringing her hands with terror. And yet Todd was gentle with the child. He knew that from the mother he had everything to hope, and everything to dread, and he did not wish to drive her to despair by any display of harshness to the little one.

"This way," she cried, "this way," as she led the way into an inner-room. "There is a cupboard here in which you can conceal yourself. If they do not search the house, they will not find you, and I will do all that I can to prevent them."

"That will do," said Todd; "but, remember, I will have the child near me, so that upon the least symptom of treachery from you, I can put it to death; and I shall not, under any circumstances, at all scruple so to do. Where is this cupboard that you speak of?"

"It is here--it is here!"

"Ah! that will do." Todd now cast his eyes around the room, and perceived a little cot, that, at night, was devoted to the slumbers of the child. "Take that," he said, pointing to it, "and place it against the door of the cupboard with the child in it. It will seem then not likely that I am hidden here."

"I will do so."

Todd did not feel any apprehension of treachery from the mother of the child. He was not slow to perceive that every other feeling was in her breast weak in comparison with the all-absorbing one of love for the infant; and so he calculated that, rather than run the shadow of a risk of injury to it, she would do all that he required. The cupboard was a deep one; but it was not high enough for Todd quite to stand upright in. That, however, was a trifling inconvenience, and he got into it at once. The child's cot was placed against the door; and the young mother, with a thousand fears tugging at her heart, pretended to busy herself about her household affairs.

The little interval that now ensued, before Todd's pursuers reached the spot, was certainly to him rather a fearful one; and he felt that his fate hung upon the proceedings of the next few moments. He called to the woman in an earnest tone--

"Courage--courage--all will be well."

"Oh, peace--peace!" she said. "They come!"

Todd quite held his breath now in the painful effort that he made to listen, so that not the slightest sound that might be indicative of the approach of his enemies might escape him; and he gave such a start, that he nearly threw open the cupboard-door, and upset the cot, as he heard a hoarse man's voice suddenly call out from the garden--

"Hilloa!--House here--house--Hilloa!"

"Now--now," he gasped. "Now I live or die! Upon the next few moments hangs my fate!"

The cold dew of intense fear stood upon his brow, and his sense of hearing appeared to be getting preternaturally acute. Not a word that was said escaped him, although it was right away in the garden that this, to him, fearfully interesting conversation took place.

"What is the matter?" he heard the woman say, and then the rough voice replied to her--

"We are the police, my good woman, and we are in search of a man who is hidden somewhere about this neighbourhood. Has any one come into your place, or have you seen a tall man pass the cottage?"

"No," said the woman.

Todd breathed a little more freely.

"It's very odd," said another voice; "for he must be about this spot, that is quite clear, as he was dodging about the field at the back of here, and hiding in the hedge. We must have passed him."

"Well, he can't get away," said a third; "but after all, he may be lying down somewhere in the garden, for all we know to the contrary."

"I don't think it," said the woman.

At this moment, the child began to cry violently.

"Oh, confound you for a brat!" said Todd, "I wish it was only safe to throttle you."

"Is that your child?" said one of the officers.

"Oh, yes--yes," said the young mother, and hastening into the cottage, she placed a chair by the side of the cot, and began to rock it to and fro, singing while she did so, to lull the child to sleep.

"She will keep her word," thought Todd. "I feel confident that she will keep her word, now, with me."

"You look all round the garden, while I take a peep about the house," said the principal officer.

"Oh, I am lost!" moaned Todd. "I am surely lost now! If the house should be searched well, so obvious a place of concealment as a cupboard will not escape them. All is lost now, indeed."

He almost gave up all thought, now, of keeping life or liberty, and he waited only for the fatal moment when the officers should approach and place their hands upon that cupboard door to open it. The child still cried, and the mother sang to it.

"'Sleep, sleep, little baby-- Oh, sleep all the day; The sunshine is hiding, The birds fly away. Away, away--far away. The sunshine is hiding, The birds fly away--'"

"Hilloa! What cupboard is that behind the child's cot?"

"'And when they return You may open your eyes.'

"Oh, it's where we keep our best crockery. Don't disturb the child--I do think it is sickening with the measles.

"'And see how the sunset Is gilding the skies, Away, away--far away. And see how the sunset Is gilding the skies.'

"Have you found him in the garden? I shall be almost out of my wits, now, till my husband comes home. Who is it that you are looking for, and pray what has he done? He would need to be clever, indeed, to come in here without my knowing it; and as for the garden, why, I was hanging out the clothes there for the last half hour, I tell you."

"Oh, he's not here," said the officer. "It would be no bad thing, marm, for any one who could lend a helping hand to find him."

"Ah, indeed?"

"Yes. You have heard of Todd, the murderer? Well, that's the man we are after, and we have every reason to think that he is somewhere about here, and it is a large reward that is offered for him, I can tell you."

"Ah! I should like to get it."

"Not a doubt of it. Good-day, marm. If you should see any suspicious-looking fellow about the fields, just give notice of it in some sort of a way, if you can, for you may depend upon it, it will be Todd."

"Oh, yes, I will. How very fractious this little thing is to-day, to be sure. I hardly ever knew it to be so before."

"Ah, well, they will be so, at times. But I'm off. Mind, now, you get the reward if you see anything of Todd."

"Oh, yes. Trust me for that."

The man left the room. What a reprieve from death that was for Todd! He thought that during all the perils that he had passed through, he had surely never been quite so near to destruction as then; and when he found that he was saved, temporarily, he could hardly hold himself up in the cupboard, and a sensation of faintness came over him.

It was not safe for him yet, by any means, to think of emerging from his place of concealment. Indeed, he felt that the young mother would be the best judge upon that hand, so he did not stir nor speak, and at last he heard the cot with the now sleeping child in it, being gently moved from before the cupboard-door. Then it was opened, and Todd, with his face pale and haggard, stepped out into the room.

The young woman only pointed to the door of the little apartment steadily and significantly.

"What do you mean?" said Todd.

"Go," she said. "I have done that which you require of me. Now go."

"To death?"

"No. Your enemies are no longer here. At the sacrifice of truth and of feeling I saved you. It was all you asked of me, and now I tell you to go, and no longer pollute this place by your presence. I know who and what you are, now. You are Sweeney Todd, the murderer."

"Well, and if I am, what then?"

"Nothing--nothing! I ask nothing of you, but that you should leave this house; I have kept my word. I will let the memory of this hour's work sink deeply into my heart, and there remain untold to any one. Not even to my husband will I breathe it. I only ask you to go."

"I am going--I am going."

Todd felt awed by her manner. He cowered before the look that, full of horror, she bent upon him, and he crept towards the cottage door. But the dread that some of his enemies might be lurking about the spot detained him.

"Tell me," he said, "oh! tell me truly--are they gone?"

"Wait," she said, "and I will see again."

She took the child in her arms, and left the cottage. Todd found, now that the child was no longer in his power as a kind of hostage for the faith of the mother, that he had trusted her too far; but it was too late, now, for him to recede from the position in which he had placed himself, and with all his terror, he had no resource but to calmly--calmly as he could--wait her return.

She came back again in a few moments.

"You can go with safety. They are all away."

"I will trust you, and take your word for it," said Todd. "I thank you for the service you have rendered to me, and I am not ungrateful. Accept of this in remembrance of me, and of this day's adventure."

He took from his pocket a splendid gold watch and laid it upon the table, in the outer room, but with vehemence, the woman cried--

"No--no! Take it up, I will not have it. Take it up, or even now I will dare everything and call for help. I will take nothing from your blood-stained hands. Take up the watch, or I will destroy it."

"As you please," said Todd, as he placed the watch in his pocket again. "I wish not to force it upon you. I am gone."

He went out into the little garden, but he looked about him very nervously indeed, before he trusted himself to walk towards the little white gate that opened upon the high road. Each moment, however, that passed without any one springing upon and attacking him, was a moment of confidence gained. He carried a pistol in his hand, and keeping his eyes keenly around him, he reached the road.

"All is safe," he said. "I do, indeed, think she is right, and that they have given up the chase for me. She has not deceived me, and I may yet escape."

He kept close to the road-side, so that he was very much covered by the hedge, and then, at as fast a pace as he thought he could keep up for any length of time, he ran on.

He had not gone far when he heard the sound of wheels behind him, and he got over a hedge and hid behind it until he could see what sort of vehicle it was that approached. It turned out to be a cart driven by a couple of countrymen, who were talking upon their own affairs in rather loud tones; as they came on, Todd listened intently, and was satisfied that his supposed escape into that neighbourhood was not the subject of their discourse.

CLXVI. THE SHIP BOUND FOR HAVRE TAKES A PASSENGER

"Hilloa!" cried Todd, as he came out into the middle of the road and confronted the cart with the two men in it. "Hilloa! Which way are you going?"

"One would think you might see that," said one of the men, "by the way the horse's nose points."

"What do you want?" said the other, rather sharply.

"Not to intrude upon you at all, if you don't like it," replied Todd; "but I am going to Gravesend, and if you will help me on a part of the way, I will pay you well for it. I thought it would be good for my constitution to walk, but I find I am older than I thought I was."

"What will you give?" said one of the men, in a dubious tone of voice.

"Name your price," said Todd, "and I will give it. I know you will not be unreasonable with me."

"Will you give half a guinea?" said the other.

"Yes, for I am foot-weary."

"Jump up, then, and we will soon take you to Gravesend. You ain't many miles off from it now by the near cuts that we know. Come on."

Todd managed to scramble into the cart, and the man who was driving gave the horse an impulse forward, and away they went at a good pace.

Todd began to feel a little easier in his mind now, for the quick motion of the cart in the direction that he wished to go in was most satisfactory to him. He felt quite delighted in a little time, when one of the men pointing ahead, cried out--

"There's the first houses in Gravesend, if you really want to go there."

"Really," said Todd. "Indeed I do. Can you tell me what vessels are off the Port?"

"Perhaps we can, and perhaps we can't, old fellow; but we will have some talk about that soon. Ha! ha!"

There was something so peculiar in the laugh of the man, that Todd began to wonder into what hands he had fallen. They, every now and then, too, gave to each other a very significant look, as though there was some secret between them which they would not converse of before him. All this began to make Todd very uneasy, indeed, and the little amount of felicitation which he had been giving to himself so short a time before, rapidly subsided.

"Am I a prisoner?"

These were the words that occurred to him, but he had no ready means of answering the question. All he could do was to keep upon his guard, and, to tell the truth, well armed and desperate as he was, Todd was no very despicable match for any two men.

Suddenly the man who was driving turned the horse's head down a deep declivity that led towards the river, to the right of the road.

The country they were in was all of chalk, and this narrow road, or rather lane, at right angles with the high road, was evidently a cutting through the chalk foundation for the sake of a ready passage from the side of the Thames to the high road.

A more picturesque spot could not well have been conceived. The small amount of loam upon the surface of the chalk, bore a brilliant vegetation; and upon the tall rugged sides of the deep cutting, wherever a small portion of earth had lodged, tall weeds had grown up, while on each side of the lane, close to the base of the chalky heights, there was a mass of weeds and tall creeping plants, and here and there a young tree, which lent a beautifully verdant aspect to the place.

Every step that the horse now went, conducted the cart and its occupants deeper and deeper into the cutting, until, at last, the sky overhead looked only like a thin streak of light, and the gloom of a premature twilight was about the place.

"Halt!" cried the man who was not driving, and the horse was stopped in the gloomiest portion of the lane. Todd turned ghastly pale, and kept his hand plunged in his breast upon one of his pistols.

"What have you come down here for?" he said. "Why do you come to a stop in such a place as this?"

"We will soon let you know," said the man who had not been driving, knitting his brows. "No doubt, you thought you had nailed us nicely, my fine fellow."

"Nailed you?"

"Yes. You need not put on such an innocent look, I can tell you. We are pretty good judges in these matters, and it's quite sufficient for me to tell you that we know you."

"Know me?"

"Yes, to be sure. Did you think we were taken in by any such nonsense as your being tired, and so on?--No. We know you, I say, and this hour is your last. You have placed yourself in our power, and we will take good care of you now. There is a well in this lane which keeps secrets capitally."

Todd drew his pistol, and held it against the breast of this man.

"Attempt any violence," he said, "and I fire!"

"Oh, indeed! You are well prepared, are you? I must say that, for an exciseman, you are a bold fellow."

"A what?"

"An exciseman. You know well you have been on the look-out for us for the last week; so it is of no use denying it. You thought you nabbed us, when you got into our cart."

Todd lowered his pistol.

"This is a foolish enough mistake," he said, "I am no more an exciseman than I am Commander-in-chief of the forces. What could have put such a thing into your heads?"

"Say you so?" cried the other. "But how will you make us believe it? That's the question."

"Well," said Todd, putting on a very candid look, "I don't know how a man is to set about proving that he is not an exciseman. I only know that I am not. The real truth is, that I am in debt, and being pressed by my creditors, have thought proper to get out of their way; and so I want to make the best of my way to Gravesend, that is all. I fancy, by your anger at the idea of my being an exciseman, that you are smugglers; and if so, I can only say that, with all my heart, you may go on smuggling with the greatest success until the day of judgment, before I would interfere with you in the matter."

"Dare we believe him?" said one of the men to the other.

"I hardly know," replied the other; "and yet it would be rather a sad thing to take a man's life, when it might turn out that he was not what we took him for."

"How on earth am I to convince you?" said Todd.

"Where do you want to go to?"

"I want to get on board some vessel, I don't care what, so that it is bound to some continental port. My object, I tell you, is to get away, and that is all."

"Would the Port of Havre in France suit you?"

"Perfectly well."

The two men now whispered together for a few moments, and then, one of them, turning to Todd, said:--

"The fact is that we are somewhat connected with a vessel bound for Havre, and it will sail to-night. If you are really what you pretend, and truly want to leave England, you can come with us, and we will give you a passage; but we expect to be paid for it."

"Nothing can be more reasonable," said Todd; "I will pay you a liberal price, and as I wish to go on board as soon as I can, you may feel yourself perfectly easy regarding your suspicions of my being an exciseman, by keeping me in your company, and placing me on board your own vessel as quickly as you can."

"Hang it, that's fair enough," cried one of them. "Come on, then, and let us get to the Lively William as soon as we can. It's rather a mercy we did not knock you on the head, though, at once."

"I am very much obliged," said Todd.

"Oh, don't mention it. I always myself, mind, defer anything of that sort till the last. It's a very rough and ugly way of settling matters, at the best; but when you can't reasonably, you know, do anything else, why, you must, and there's an end of it."

"Exactly," said Todd. "I perceive that you are quite a philosopher in such transactions. So now that we have a better understanding together, the sooner we get on board this Lively William you talk of, the better."

"Not a doubt of that. Come up."

The horse's head was turned up the lane again, and in a very few moments the high road was gained, and they went on at a rapid trot for Gravesend. The town was soon reached--that town what is all dirt in winter, and chalk-dust in summer--and the two men, by the manner in which they kept their eyes upon Todd while they passed several throngs of people, showed that it was a very difficult thing indeed to get rid of suspicion when once it took possession of them.

After, however, getting right through the town, and finding that Todd did not attempt to give the least alarm, but, on the contrary, shrunk from observation as much as he could, their confidence in him was complete, and they really believed him to be what he pretended to be.

Whether, if those men had really known who and what he was, they would have altered their views with regard to him, is a matter difficult to give an opinion upon; but as it was, they had no scruples whatever, provided he would pay them a good price for his passage to Havre.

"Now," said one of them, "we know that you have not deceived us, and that it is all right, we don't mind telling you that we are the captain and owner of the Lively William, and that we are in the regular smuggling trade, between the French Ports and this country. We don't make a bad thing of it, one way and another."

"I am glad to hear it," said Todd.

"Ah, you view this sort of thing in a christian-like spirit, we see; and if you have no objection to a drop of as pure champagne brandy as ever you tasted, provided you have tasted some of the best, you can have a drop."

"I should like it much," said Todd.

"Just look out ahead, then, and fix your eyes on that old tree yonder, while we get it."

Todd did not care to know what mode of hiding spirits the two men had in their cart; so he did as they required of him, and fixed his eyes upon the old tree. After he had kept his eyes upon that object for some few minutes, they called out to him--

"All's right."

Todd looked round, and found one of the men with a small bladder of spirits, and a little horn drinking-cup.

"Here," he said, "you can give us your opinion of this."

Todd tossed off the contents of the cup.

"Excellent!" he cried. "Excellent! That, indeed, is brandy. I do not think that such is to be got in London."

"Scarcely," said the man, as he helped himself, and then handed the bladder and the cup to his companion; "but we are going to put up our horse and cart now, and if you will be so good as to look at the old tree again, we will send the brandy away."

"Certainly," said Todd.

The brandy was soon, in some mysterious manner, disposed of, and then the cart was stopped at the door of a little country-looking inn, the landlord of which seemed to have a perfect understanding with the two men belonging to the Lively William.

"Now," said one of them to Todd, "as you have no objection to go on board at once, we will put you there."

"Objection?" cried Todd. "My objection is to remain on land. I beg that you will let me feel that I am on the deck of your vessel, as quickly as possible."

"That will do. This way."

They led him down a narrow lane with tall hedges upon each side, and then across a straggling mangy-looking field or two, such as are to be found on the banks of the Thames, and on the northern coasts of some portions of England, the Isle of Wight in particular, and then they came at once to the bank of the river.

A boatman hailed them, and upon their making signs to him that his services were required, he pulled in to the shore; and Todd, with his two new friends, were in a few moments going through the water to the vessel.

The Lively William did not look particularly lively. It was a slatternly-looking craft, and its black, dingy hull presented anything but an inviting appearance. The genius of dirt and neglect seemed to have taken possession of the vessel, and the nearer Todd got to it, the less he liked it; but still it was a means of his escaping, and had it been ten times a more uncomfortable-looking abode than it was, he would have gladly gone on board it.

"Here we are!" cried one of the men.

The boat touched the side of the ship, and in another moment, Todd was upon her deck.

CLXVII. TODD MEETS WITH A LITTLE ROUGH WEATHER IN THE CHANNEL

Todd almost thought that he was saved, when he felt himself fairly upon the deck of the Lively William. It seemed to him such a miracle to get so far, that his faith in completely getting the better of his enemies increased wonderfully.

"Oh, this is a relief," he said. "This is, indeed, a vast relief."

"What do you mean?" said one of the men of the cart to him, as he eyed him keenly.

Todd was very anxious not to excite any suspicion that he was other than what he had represented himself to be; so he answered quickly--

"I mean that it is a relief to get out of the small boat into the ship. Ever so little a distance in a boat disagrees with me."

"Oh, that's it, is it?"

"Yes; and if you have no particular objection, I will go below at once. I daresay the cabin accommodation is very good on board the Lively William."

"Oh, quite wonderful!" said the captain. "If you will come with me Mr.--a--a--what's your name?"

"Wilkins," said Todd.

"Oh, Mr. Wilkins. Well, if you will come with me, I shall have the very great pleasure of showing you what a capital berth we can give you."

"Thank you," said Todd, and then, rather timidly, for the staircase down which the captain dived seemed to Todd better adapted for poultry than for human beings, he carefully followed his new friend.

The cabin of the Lively William was a woful place. Any industrious house-wife would have sneered at it as a linen-cupboard; and if it had been mentioned as a store-room in any establishment of pretentions, it would have excited universal reprobation. It had a roof which nobbed Todd's head if he attempted to stand upright; and the walls sloped to the shape of the sides of the Lively William. The window was a square hole, with a sliding shutter; and the furniture would have made the dingiest broker's shop in London blush to own it.

"This is the state cabin," said the captain.

"Really?" said Todd.

"Why, don't you see it is by its size and looks? You won't often see in a craft of this size a handsomer cabin than that of the Lively William."

"I dare say not," said Todd. "It will do very well for me, my friend. When a man is travelling, he must not be very particular, as it is soon over."

"That true; but now I want to say something to you, if you please, that's rather particular. It's quite clear to me and my mate, that you want to get out of England as quickly as possible. What you have done, or what you haven't is not much matter to us, except, so far as that, we daresay you have swindled the public to a tolerable tune. We don't mean to take you for nothing."

"Nor do I wish you," said Todd. "Nothing can possibly be further from my thoughts."

"Very good; then, in a word, we don't intend to do the thing unhandsome; and you shall have all the capital accommodation that the Lively William can give you to the Port of Havre for twenty pounds."

"Twenty pounds?"

"Yes. If you think it is too much, you may go on shore again, and there is no harm done, you know."

"Oh, no--no. That is, I cannot help thinking it is a large price; and if I were to say I thought otherwise, you would not believe me; but as I really wish to go, and you say you will not take less, I must give it."

"Very good. That's settled, then. We shall be off at ebb-tide, and I only hope we shall have good luck, for if we do, we ought to make Havre, at all events, this time to-morrow."

"I hope we shall."

"Keep up your heart, and make yourself comfortable. Here's lots of the most amusing books on this shelf. Let me see. Here is the 'Navy List' for about ten years ago, and here's a 'Ready-reckoner,' and here is 'The Exciseman's Vade Mecum,' and here is a 'Chart of the Soundings of Baffin's Bay,' so you can't say you are out of books."

"Oh, how kind," said Todd.

"And you can order whatever you like to eat and drink, provided you don't think of anything but boiled beef, biscuits, and brandy."

"Oh, I shall do well enough. Rest is now what I want, and a quick voyage."

"Very good," said the captain. "You will not be at all interrupted here, so you can lie down in this magnificent berth."

"What, on that shelf?"

"Shelf? Do you call the state berth of the 'Lively William,' a shelf!"

"Well--well, I dare say it is very comfortable, though the roof, I see, is only eight inches or so from one's nose. I am very much obliged. Oh, very!"

The captain now left Todd to himself and to his own thoughts, and as he really felt fatigued, he got into the state berth of the Lively William, which, to tell the truth, would have been very comfortable if it had only been a little wider and a little longer, and the roof higher, and not quite so damp and hard as it was.

But, after all, what where all these little disagreeables, provided he, Todd, fairly escaped? If he once set his foot upon the shores of France, he felt that, with the great continent before him, he should be free, and he did not doubt for a moment getting in any capital a ready enough market among the Jews for the watches and jewellery that he had about him.

The ship as the tide washed slowly by it, moved to and fro with a sluggish motion that rocked Todd to sleep, and he dropped off from a perception of the world and all its cares.

How long he slept he knew not, but when he awoke all was darkness around him, and the first attempt he made to move brought his head into violent contact with the partition of his berth.

Then Todd felt that the ship was tossing upon the water, and he could hear the dash and ripple of the sea pass her sides, while every now and then a loud splash against the closed shutter of the cabin-window warned him that that sea was not in one of its quietest moods.

"We are off!" cried Todd, in the exultation of his spirits at that fact. "We are off, and I am all but free."

He attempted to get out of the berth, and he was materially assisted by a roll of the sea that sent him to the other side of the cabin, accompanied by a couple of stools and several articles that happened to be lying loose upon the floor.

"Murder!" cried Todd.

"Hilloa!" cried a gruff voice from the companion-way. "Hilloa! What now?"

"Oh, nothing," said Todd. "Nothing. Where are we now? Oh, dear, what a thing it is to live in a cupboard that won't stand still."

The gleam of a lantern flashed in Todd's eyes, and the captain came below with it swinging in his hand. He steadied himself against the table, which was firmly screwed to the floor, and hung the lantern to a short chain dependent from the cabin-roof.

"There," said the captain. "The chandelier is alight now, and you will be able to see about you. Hilloa! Where are you now?"

"Why, I rather think I fell off the shelf," said Todd. "I beg your pardon, the state berth, I mean."

"Then you had better turn in again, for we shall have, I think, a squally sort of night rather. There are symptoms of a sou wester, and if so, you will know a little of what weather is in the Channel."

"Where are we now?" said Todd, mournfully.

"About fifteen miles off the North Foreland, so we are tolerably quiet just yet; but when we turn the head of the land, it's likely enough we may find out what the wind means to say to us."

While the captain spoke, he tugged on a complete suit of waterproof apparel, that seemed as thick and inflexible as so much armour covered with tar, and then up he went upon deck again, leaving Todd to the society of his own reflections and the chandelier.

The Lively William was going on just then with a flowing sheet, so that she was carrying a tolerably even keel, and Todd was able to get up and reach his berth; but at the moment that he laid hold of the side of it to clamber in, the ship was tacked, and away went Todd to the opposite side of the state-cabin with the rug in his grasp that did duty as a counterpane in the berth.

"This will kill me," he groaned. "Oh, this will kill me. But yet--yet I am escaping, and that is something. There will be a storm, but all ships are not lost that encounter storms."

Todd made up his mind to remain where he was, jammed up against the cabin partition, until the ship should right itself sufficiently for him to make another effort to reach his berth.

After a few minutes he thought he would make the attempt.

"Now," he said. "Now, surely, I can do it. I will try. How the wind howls, to be sure, and how the waves dash against the ship's sides, as though they would stave in her timbers; but all is well, no doubt. I will try again."

Very cautiously now Todd crept to his berth, and this time the winds and the waves were kind enough only to move the ship so that he knocked his head right and left a little, and managed then to scramble on to the little inconvenient shelf, with its damp mattress that served for a bed.

"Ah," said Todd, "and there are people who might, if they liked, stay on land all their lives, and yet they pretend to prefer the sea. There's no accounting for tastes."

By dint of jerking it a little from under him, Todd propped the mattress against the outer edge of the berth; so that provided the vessel did lurch in that direction, it was not so likely to tumble him out, and there he lay listening to the winds and the waves.

"A storm in the Channel!" he muttered. "From what that beast of a captain said, it appears we are to have one. Well, well, I have weathered many a storm on land, and now I must put up with one at sea."

At this moment, there was a tremendous bustle upon deck, and some orders were issued that were quite unintelligible to Todd. There was, however, a great flapping of canvas, and a rattling of chains.

The Lively William was weathering the South Foreland, and just going to do battle with half a gale of wind in the Channel.

Up to this point, Todd had, with something approaching to resignation, put up with the disagreeables about him; and upon the principle of the song which states that--

"When a man travels, he mustn't look queer, If he meets a few rubs that he does not meet here,"

he regarded his position with philosophy; but now there came over him a dreadful sensation. A cold clammy dew burst out upon his face--all strength fled from his limbs, and with a deep groan, Todd began to feel the real horror of sea sickness.

Nothing can be like sea sickness but death, and nothing can be like death but sea sickness. Todd had never suffered from that calamity before; and now that it came upon him, in all its aggravated horrors, he could not believe that it was a mere passing indisposition, but concluded that he must have been poisoned by the captain of the ship, and that his last hour was come.

And now Todd would fain have made a noise, and called for help. He would have liked to fire one of his pistols in the face of that captain, provided he could but have got him to the side of his berth; but he had not strength left to utter a word above a whisper; and as for moving his hand to his pockets to get out his fire-arms, he could not so much as lift a finger.

All Todd could do was to go on, and to get each moment worse and worse with that awful sensation of sickness, which resembles the sickness of the soul at parting from its mortal house, to which it had clung so long.

The wind howled upon the deck and through the cordage of the vessel--the spray dashed over her bulwarks, and each moment the storm increased in fury.

CLXVIII. TODD GETS A WORLD OF MARITIME EXPERIENCE

The idea that he was poisoned grew upon Todd each moment, and to such a man, it was truly terrific to think that he should come to so fearful an end.

"Help! Help!" he groaned; but after all, it was only a groan and not a cry--not that that mattered; for if he had had the lungs of ten men all concentrated in his own person, and had so been able to cry out with a superhuman voice, it would have been most completely lost amid the roar of the wind, and the wild dashing of the waves.

The storm was certainly increasing.

"Oh, this sickness!" groaned Todd. "Oh, dear--oh, dear!"

At the moment that he was so bad that, in his want of experience of what sea sickness really was, he thought every moment would be his last, he heard some one coming down into the cabin, and one of the crew rolled rather than walked into it.

"Help!" said Todd; "oh, help!"

"You go to the d--l!" said the man. "The captain is washed overboard, and we are all going to the bottom, so I am one who likes to take a little spirits with him to qualify the water that one may be obliged to swallow. That's it. Steady, craft, steady."

Practised as this man no doubt was in the art of keeping his footing upon an undulating surface, the pitching of the ship was so tremendous, that even he was thrown to the cabin floor with considerable violence, and had no easy task to rise again.

"No!" cried Todd, finding that positive fright lent him strength, "you do not mean that?"

"Mean what, you old sinner?"

"That we shall be lost?"

The man nodded, and having opened a little cupboard, he brought out a little bladder of spirits, and placing it to his lips, he drank a large quantity, while he held by the cupboard door to keep himself from falling.

"That will do," he said, as he dropped the bladder to the floor, and then, after several unsuccessful efforts to do so, he scrambled upon deck again.

"I, too, will drink," said Todd; "oh, yes, I will drink. I feel that if anything will give me strength to bear the horrors of the night, it will be my old and well-tried friend, brandy."

He cast his eyes upon the bladder of spirits that the sailor had thrown to the floor. The spirit was slowly weltering out of the bladder, and running in a stream across the cabin. As the odour of it saluted the nose of Todd, he exclaimed,--

"It is brandy! I must and will have some!"

It was all very well for Todd to say that he must and would have some of the brandy, but the difficulty of getting at it was one by no means easy to surmount. He recollected what a job he had to get into his berth again upon the occasion that he had got out of it before, and he dreaded to place himself in a similar predicament; yet he found the vessel was more steady, although the wind had not at all abated. Yes, it certainly was more steady.

"I will try," said Todd. "I must have some."

With a determination, then, to get at the choice liquor, which was wasting what Todd considered its sweetness upon the cabin floor, he slid out of his little bed-place, and the ship giving a sudden roll in a trough of the sea, he fell sprawling to the floor.

"Oh, I shall be killed!" he yelled. "This frightful voyage will be the death of me! It is too terrible! Oh, Heaven! It is much too terrible! Help!--mercy!"

Todd lay upon his back on the cabin floor, with his arms and legs stretched out like a gigantic St. Andrew's cross. Something touched his hand; it was the bladder of brandy, that, as the ship rolled, had moved towards him. He clutched it with a feeling of despair, and brought it to his lips.

With the exception of about half a pint, the brandy had made its way on to the cabin floor; but it was strong, pure spirit--such brandy, in fact, as smugglers might well reserve for their own private drinking; so that the half pint was a very tolerable dose to take at once, and Todd drained it to the last drop.

"Better!" he said; "oh, yes, I am better, now."

The fumes of the strong spirit mounted to his brain, and got the better, for the time, of that frightful feeling of sickness which had been so like death, that Todd had mistaken it for the last pangs that he was likely to feel in this world.

"Oh, yes, I am better. How the wind howls now, and how the waves dash the ship hither and thither. The deck, yes, the deck will be the place for me. Oh, gracious! what was that?"

A loud crash, and a scream from some drowning wretches who had gone overboard along with a mast, had broken upon his ears. Terror sat at his very heart, and unable any longer to endure the frightful suspense of being below, he tried, upon his hands and knees, to crawl upon the deck.

By no other mode could Todd have had the slightest hope or expectation of reaching the deck of that fated vessel, but as he tried it, he did, after a time, succeed in dragging himself up from the cabin. The sea was washing over the deck, and for a few moments he could see no one. He watched for a lull in the wind, and then he cried--

"Help! help! Oh, help!"

"Who's that?" shouted a voice.

"I!" said Todd.

"Go to blazes, then!"

"Oh, how kind!" groaned Todd. "How very considerate at such a time as this, too."

The wind that had lulled for a few moments, now came with a frightful gush, and Todd was glad to find the fragments of a quantity of cordage, belonging to some of the top parts of the mast that had gone overboard, to cling to till the gust had passed over the ship. Then there came some tons of salt water over him, and he was nearly bereft of the power of breathing.

"Oh, this is dreadful!" he said. "This is truly dreadful!"

"Hands off!" growled a voice. "Everybody for himself here. Hands off, I say."

"What do you mean?" said Todd. "Do you speak to me?"

The voice had sounded close to him; and now again, with an angry tone, it cried--

"Some one has got hold of my leg!"

"Oh, I dare say I have," said Todd, "but I didn't know. There, I have left go. Who are you, sir, eh?"

"Oh! don't bother!"

"Well, but is there any danger?"

"Danger! I rather think there is. I suppose you are the love of a passenger that the captain brought on board?"

"Yes, I am the passenger," said Todd. Why he should be called a love of a passenger he did not exactly know; but he repeated his question concerning the condition of the ship; and at the next lull of wind, for it came now very strangely in gusts, he got a not very consolatory reply.

"Why, as to danger," said the man, "that's rather past, I reckon; but, perhaps, you are a landsman, and have not yet thoroughly made up your mind."

"To what?"

"To be drowned, some day or night, as I have."

"Oh, no--no! Don't say that. Drowning is a very dreadful death, indeed. I am sure it is."

"It may, or it may not be so," said the man, "but whether it is or not, you and I are very likely soon to find out, for the old craft is going at last."

"Going?"

"Yes. It's all up with her, and it will soon be all down with her, likewise."

"But the ship goes easier through the sea."

"Oh, ah, she's filling, you see, and settling lower down in the water, so you can't have quite so much pitching and tossing as you had an hour ago, hardly."

"You can't mean that? You do not mean to tell me that there is no hope? Oh, say not so!"

"Well, you can please yourself. I can tell you that the rudder has gone.--We have not a mast standing. There is already five feet of water in the hold, and we are drifting as hard as we can upon a lee-shore, so if you can make anything satisfactory out of that, I leave you to do it."

"Did you say we were drifting to shore?"

"A lee-shore."

"Oh, dear. I'm glad to hear it. Any shore will do for me, if I can but get out of this confounded ship. What is that afar off? Is it a light? Oh, yes, it is a light."

"It is. We are on the Sussex coast, somewhere, but I can't take upon myself to say where; but it don't matter a bit, for we shall go to pieces long before we reach the surf, and then in such a sea as this you might as well try to swallow the Channel at a few draughts as to swim."

"But I can't swim at all."

"It don't matter a bit."

"But, my dear friend--"

"Hold your row--I am not your dear friend nor anybody else's, just now. I tell you we shall be all drowned, and the best thing you can do, is to take it as easy as possible. What can be the good of making a fuss about it?"

This information was to Todd of so deplorable a character--for to none is death so terrible as to the guilty--that he wept aloud and screamed with terror as the spray of the sea struck him on the face, and the wind roared and whistled over him.

"Oh, no--no!" he cried. "I cannot die yet--I must not. Spare me--spare me! I am afraid to die!"

"Oh, you stupid," said the sailors. "That comes now of not having had a proper sort of education. I make no doubt but your howling will pretty soon be put an end to."

The situation of the ship was undoubtedly one of the greatest possible peril. Having by the violence of the tempest lost all her masts, and having had her rudder torn away, she was quite at the mercy of the winds and the waves; and the set of the sea, as well as the direction of the wind, carried her sometimes stern foremost and at other times head foremost, and at times broadside, on to the coast of Sussex, upon which the lights were at intervals dimly visible through the thick haze of the storm.

It was truly a dreadful night, and such as fully merited the worst apprehensions of the sailor, who had spoken so coolly to Todd of his coming fate.

There was but one chance for those on board of the vessel, and that was that the wind might abate sufficiently to enable some boats to put off from the Sussex coast, provided they happened to be off a part of it where such accommodation was to be had, and rescue those upon the wreck. The lights that at intervals were visible, rather favoured the supposition that it was a populous part of the coast that the ill-starred struggling ship was driving fast upon.

Todd, however, did not know of that slender hope, and he gave himself up to despair.

To a landsman nothing could exceed the real horrors of the scene on board the ship, and, indeed, to one well accustomed to the sea, there was quite enough to produce much terror. All but three persons connected with the working of the ship had been washed overboard during the gale. Both of the men with whom Todd had had the meeting in the cart were at the bottom of the sea, and all their struggles and smugglings were over. Todd did not know that, though.

It was quite evident to practical observers that the gale was abating, for it no longer was so steady and so continuous a wind that blew with fury over the fated ship; and although the sea still ran high, it did not break over the vessel with such thundering impetuosity.

A very faint glow of daylight, too, began to come over the sea.

If Todd had had mind enough left to look about him now, he would have seen that there was some food for hope, although not much; but the fact was, that he had so thoroughly made up his mind that all was lost, that he did not look for consolation.

How poor and how miserable appeared to him, at this moment, all his struggles for wealth--that wealth, for the attainment of which he had struggled through such gigantic crimes! How much happier, he could not help thinking, it would have been for him to have gone on all his life in plodding industry, than to endeavour as he had done to find a short road to fortune, and only to end in finding a short one to death.

One of the seamen cried out in a loud voice--

"Save themselves who can! We shall be on shore, now, in less than five minutes! We are all going now as safe as nuts!"

CLXIX. TAKES A PEEP AT SOME FRIENDS OF THE READER

For a brief space, now, in order to connect more closely the events of this narrative, we will leave Sweeney Todd to the perils and chances of the disabled ship, and the storm in the Channel, while we conduct the reader to the society of other persons, in whom it is to be presumed we are largely interested.

In the most cheerful room of one of the prettiest houses at Brighton, facing the beach upon the Esplanade, which is unrivalled, was a rather select party.

That party consisted of old and well-tried friends of the reader, and when we announce of whom it was composed, it will be seen that their society is decidedly good.

First of all, there was Ben the beef-eater. Poor Ben had never before been at a sea-coast town, and everything was consequently to him new and strange. Yet he felt amazingly happy, because he was surrounded by those whom he loved with all his heart; and if he had now and then a wandering thought, it was to the animals in the Tower, to whom he was accustomed, and who, no doubt, missed Ben quite as much, if not more, than he missed them.

Then there was Tobias. Yes, Tobias was there, looking so fresh and so well, notwithstanding that he knew Sweeney Todd was at large, that it was quite a congratulation for those who felt that they were his friends to see him. The rest of the party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Ingestrie, and Colonel Jeffrey and his young bride, and Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, so that there was really quite an assemblage in that room.

The colonel holds a letter in his hands, and is speaking, while all eyes are turned upon him.

"Yes," said the colonel, "this letter is from Sir Richard Blunt, and I will read it to you, if you will be so good as to listen to it."

"Oh, yes--yes," said everybody.

"Very well. Here it is, then."

Upon this, the colonel read as follows:--

"Craven Street, London.

"MY DEAR COLONEL,--No news of Todd. We are sparing neither pains nor expense in tracking him; and it is an absolute impossibility that he should escape us long. Accident, I am convinced, much more than any design or luck upon his part, has had the effect as yet of keeping him out of our hands. But I do not think that it would be very difficult to count the time, in hours, between this and the period when he must be dead or a prisoner.

"I hope that all our dear friends with you are quite well, and that they will banish from their minds all fear of the revenge of Todd. Nothing is more improbable than that he should dream of finding his way to the obscure little village where you are. I hope all of you are benefiting much by the health-giving breezes of the ocean.

"With kind regard to all, I am, my dear colonel,

"Yours very truly,

"RICHARD BLUNT."

"Still at large!" said Mark Ingestrie, upon the conclusion of the letter. "So the rascal is still at large?"

"Yes," said the colonel; "but you hear what the magistrate says, that he will soon have him."

"Yes, but that is rather a hope than a certainty."

Tobias changed colour, and Johanna turned to him, saying, in a kind tone--

"Nay, now, Tobias, you have nothing to fear from Todd. Did you not hear what the letter said upon that point?"

"Yes oh, yes!" replied Tobias. "I will fear nothing while you are all so good to me."

"I tell's you what it is," said Ben. "That 'ere fellow is for all the world just like one of the wild beastesses as declines being tamed. We had one once as got away one night, and he swam over the river, you see."

"And did you catch him?" said Tobias.

"After a time, yes. Easy did it."

"Who did it, sir?"

"Easy--It ain't a who. It's a way of doing things. You take it easy, you know."

"Oh, yes, I understand now."

"Well, I went arter the fellow, and traced him up and down the streets on the Surrey side, till I got him into a court where there was no thoroughfare, and then I nabbed him."

"And he did no mischief?"

"None to signify. He settled a couple of old women and five or six children, that was all."

Tobias shuddered, and the colonel said--

"I cannot but be surprised that Sir Richard has not yet found out the retreat of Todd, and my own opinion is that he is dead."

"It is more than probable," said Ingestrie; "I have thought so several times. When he found that there was no hope for him, and that he was in a state of destitution, or something near it, which must be the fact, it is likely enough that he has laid violent hands upon himself, and his body may not be found for a long time."

"Well," said the colonel "let us get out for a stroll upon the beach. It will be dark in another half hour, and as there is no moon to-night, we shall not like to remain out."

They all rose upon this suggestion, but the evening dropped so rapidly, and several black clouds piled themselves up in the sky, that Ingestrie, after stepping out upon the balcony and looking at the weather, came back again, and said--

"You had better remain in, all of you. I have seen enough of the sea, and heard enough of the wind, to prophesy that this will be a rough night in the Channel."

"Will there be a storm, Mark?" said Johanna.

"There will be a very good imitation of one, you may depend, if not a real one."

"If there should be," said the colonel, "you will be rather surprised, for, I can tell you, that a gale off this coast is no joke. You would be truly amazed at the violence with which a regular south-western sets upon this shore."

"I can easily imagine it," said Mark Ingestrie. "See, it darkens every minute, and what an angry look that small cloud right away in the horizon has."

"It has, indeed," said Johanna, as she clung to the arm of her husband. "Do you think, Mark, that any poor souls will be wrecked to-night?"

"Probably enough; but the coast of Suffolk and the Irish Channel will be the worst. It will be child's play here in comparison."

A strange booming noise came across the sea at this moment, and the colonel cried out--

"Is that a gun, or is it thunder?"

"Thunder!" said Ingestrie; "hark! there it is again! There is a storm some forty or fifty miles off. It's right away in the German Ocean, most likely; but only look now even, dark as it is getting, how the sea is rising, and what an odd seething condition it is getting into."

They all stood on the balcony and looked out towards the sea. The surface of it was to the eye only undulating quite gently, and yet, strange to say, it was rapidly covering with white foam, and that from no perceptible cause, for as yet the wind was a mere trifle.

"How is that?" said Johanna. "The sea is not very rough, and yet it is all white."

"It is the worst sign of bad weather," said Ingestrie. "The commotion has begun below the surface in some mysterious way, and that white foam which you see each moment rapidly increasing is cast up; but soon the whole surface will begin to heave, and then you will find out what a storm is."

"We may hear it," said the colonel; "but if this darkness continues, I doubt very much if we shall be able to bring any other of our senses into requisition upon the occasion."

"Hush!" said Tobias, "what is that?"

He held up his hand as he spoke, and as they were then all profoundly still, a strange, low, wailing sound came over the water.

"What can it be?" said Johanna.

"Only the gale," smiled Ingestrie. "It's coming, now. That's the sigh of the wind over the water. You will soon hear it, I can tell you. Now, only notice how still everything is. There, look how that bird flies in a terrified manner close to the ground. It knows that the gale is coming. The sound you heard with intense listening, you will be able now to hear without listening at all. It will force itself upon your notice. Hilloa! There it comes! Look at the sea!"

A few miles out from the shore the sea seemed to rise like a wall of water, tipped with a ridge of foam, and then down it came with such a splash and a roar, that it was plainly heard on the shore, and then, in a moment or two, the impulse so given communicated itself to the whole of the sea, and it was fearfully agitated. With a roar and a shriek, the gale swept on, and from that moment conversation was almost out of the question.

The ladies of the party were glad to get into the house again, and in a little time the colonel and Ingestrie found it anything but comfortable to remain in the balcony; and as the night had fairly set in, they likewise retreated.

The gale lasted the whole of the evening, and when our friends retired to rest it seemed to be rather increasing than otherwise. It was still dark when Ingestrie was awakened from his sleep by a knocking at the door of his room.

"Hilloa!" he said; "who's there?"

"It is I," said Colonel Jeffrey. "Will you get up, Mr. Ingestrie? It is nearly morning, and they say a ship is going down about a couple of miles off the coast."

"I'm coming!" cried Ingestrie, as he sprang out of bed and dressed himself with amazing rapidity. "If it does go down, it will not be the only one that finds the bottom of the Channel to-night."

When he reached the lower part of the house, he found the colonel and Ben waiting for him.

"This has been an awful night," said the colonel.

"Well, I don't know," said Ingestrie; "for I have been fast asleep."

"Asleep!" cried Ben; "I couldn't get a wink of sleep but once, and then I dreamt I was a mermaid. Why, what with the howling of the wind, which is a great deal worse than our lioness when she wants her knuckle of beef, and the washing of the water, I couldn't rest at all."

"The voice of the wind," said Ingestrie, "always has the effect of sending me fast asleep. But you said something of a ship in distress, did you not?"

"Yes. They say that in the offing there is a large ship, and that she is evidently water-logged, and must go down, unless she drives ashore."

"The deuce she must! Let us run down to the beach at once, and see what we can do."

With this, they all three left the house, and made the best of their way to the beach along the execrable shingle of the Brighton coast. It was far from being an easy task to proceed, for the wind was terrific, and now and then, when they did reach the beach, there came a sea washing in, that drenched them with spray.

A crowd of people had collected upon the coast; some were holding up lanterns on the end of poles, and many were prepared with ropes to cast to the aid of any of the crew of the vessel that might swim to the shore.

"There she is," said Ingestrie; "I see her! It's a small craft, and she is a wreck already."

"She must go down, then?" said the colonel.

"I don't know. She is drifting in shore, but evidently quite unmanageable. She is a sheer hulk. If they had the least control over her, they could run her in in ten minutes on to the beach; but she is going about like a log."

"Then, she may go down in deep water yet?"

"In truth, she may."

"Here are plenty of boats?"

"Boats? My dear friend, there never was a boat yet that could live in such a sea as this. It is out of the question. You find no one makes the attempt, and I am quite sure that among the hardy fishermen of this place, there are many would do so if it were at all practicable; but it is most certain that death in the surf would be the result."

"I fear it would, indeed."

"There she goes!" cried a voice.

"Eh?" said Ben, turning round and round, "I don't see anybody in the female line."

"The ship!" cried Ingestrie. "They mean the ship. But she is not gone yet. There she is, still. Do you see her, colonel, like a tub upon the water? There, right away, by yon light-coloured cloud."

"I do--I do!"

The ship had not gone down. She had only settled for a moment or two in the trough of the sea; and it was now quite evident that the wreck was rapidly drifting towards the shore, so that there was an expectation that it might strike in shallow water, and so give the crew a chance of escape from death.

CLXX. MARK INGESTRIE RESCUES A SHIPWRECKED MAN

The scene now upon the beach at Brighton was one of the most exciting that can well be imagined. No one who has not stood upon a beach under such circumstances, and seen a brave ship battling with the waters, can have any real idea of it.

Language is too weak to paint the feelings of such a conjunction of circumstances. It is so hopeless a thing to stand upon the shore, and listen to the wind roaring in its fury, and to see the waves dashing in mad gyrations hither and thither, while a few frail and creaking timbers only keep some poor mortals from sinking into the sea, which, like a seething cauldron, seems ready to devour them, that it is enough to unman the stoutest heart.

No wonder that persons with kindly sympathies and gentle feelings towards human nature, such as Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie undoubtedly had, should suffer acutely to see others so suffer.

If there had been any likelihood of a boat reaching the ill-fated ship, Ingestrie would have been the first to propose such a measure, and the first, with hand and heart, to carry it out; but there was no such likelihood. Our friend had seen too much of service afloat, and was by far too good a sailor to suppose for an instant that any boat could live for a cable's length from the shore in such a sea as that!

"Is it quite impossible to aid them?" said the colonel.

"Quite," said Ingestrie, "unless they strike close in shore. Then, something may, perhaps, be done."

"Ay, sir," said a weather-beaten boatman who stood close to Ingestrie, "you are right there. If they only drift a little further in, and are still afloat, when the keel touches ground they may get ashore some of them."

"No boat," said the colonel, "could reach her?"

"Boat, sir! My little bit of a craft will do now and then things that one ought not to expect, from anything in the shape of a boat; but that surf would toss it up like a piece of cork, and it would only be making bad worse to draw a few brave fellows from land here, because others are going down at sea."

"You are right," said Ingestrie. "Do you happen to know the craft out yonder?"

"No, sir. She is so swept clear, that it would be hard to know her if she were one's own; but I don't think she belongs to this port at all."

"The gale is going down a bit."

"It is, sir. Don't you see it's coming in puffs like--It won't last much longer."

"Gone!" cried a hundred voices at once.

"No--no!" cried Ingestrie. "Don't say that."

A wild shriek came across the surface of the water, and the ship that had been doing battle with the winds and the waves, disappeared.

"Oh, this is, indeed, terrible," said Colonel Jeffrey. "It is too horrible!"

"It is, indeed!" cried Ingestrie. "There is but one chance now of doing any good, and that is in case any poor fellow should get washed on shore through the surf with a few sparks of life in him. Hilloa, my men! Get out your tackle, and let us look out for the survivors. Some one may try to fight for it yet."

The sailors and boatmen upon the beach were charmed with the idea that they might be able to do some good in this way; and as they soon found that Ingestrie knew perfectly well what he was about, they listened to his orders, in the course they should take, and obeyed them with alacrity and skill.

He had some of the long line connected with the fishing-nets, and to which corks were attached, cast out into the sea by the aid of little kedge anchors, so that the waves did not bring them back again, and as the other ends of the lines were held firmly on the shore, any one might be struggling for life amid the surf, would have had a good chance of preservation by laying hold of one of those lines.

"We may do some good," said Ingestrie, as he tied one end of one of the ropes round his waist.

"What are you about?" said the colonel.

"Oh, nothing. Do not fancy I am going to throw myself into the waves. But if I should chance to see any poor soul struggling for life, it would take something to prevent me from going after him."

"But think of yourself."

"Oh, I cannot come to any sort of harm, you know. They will easily be able to haul me on shore, you perceive, by the other end of the rope, and I have been rather used to fighting my way through the waves."

"Heaven speed you, if the occasion for your doing so again should arise, my gallant friend. Far be it from me to dissuade you against such an attempt; and I am sure that even she who loves you best of all, would be the first to encourage you."

"Of course she would."

"All lost, sir," said a sailor.

"No, don't say that!" cried Ingestrie. "Where is that night glass that some one had here a little while ago?"

"Here, sir."

Ingestrie placed the telescope to his eye, and looked fixedly in the direction of the wreck. He then handed it to the sailor, and said--

"Who has a good hold of the end of this rope that is about me?"

"All's right, sir. There will be no lack of hands with that. But you don't mean to go through the surf, sir?"

"I see a human being struggling with the foam, and from his actions he is no swimmer. I cannot stand here and see him die, while there is a chance of saving him. Hark you! Don't wait for me to sing out, but use your own eyes, and begin to pull in the moment you see me close with him. The dawn is coming rapidly, and you will see better each moment. Now, I'm off."

"For the love of Heaven be careful!" cried the colonel.

Ingestrie smiled, and then dashed into the roaring, bubbling surf of the sea, with the rope round his waist.

A loud cheer burst from the throats of all present, as the heroic action was witnessed. If anything had been wanting, which it was not, to urge the gallant Mark Ingestrie on his brave and noble adventure, that cheer would have done it; but amid the roar and din of the water about his ears, it is doubtful if he could have heard it at all, or any noise of ten times the intensity.

The figure in the sea, that had attracted the attention of Ingestrie, was now plainly perceived by the colonel, and by all who were upon the beach. To the practised eyes of the sailors then present, it was evident that the body must be lashed to some very buoyant substance, which enabled it to keep afloat, not-withstanding the roll of the sea, and the breaking of the waves over it. The person was evidently not swimming, although, by the wash of the tide, and the set of the wind, he was being driven into shore.

Mark Ingestrie felt that his only chance of getting through the surf was to dive under it, and that manoeuvre he executed with a skill that few could have commanded and to the admiration and delight of all the spectators of his heroic conduct, he appeared outside the roaring edge of the sea, quite able to swim gallantly towards the shipwrecked man.

As he had said, the dawn was coming fast now, so that there was no great difficulty in seeing him, and in watching, with some degree of accuracy, his movements.

"He will do it!" said the colonel.

"Do it?" said the sailor who had the first hold of the rope that was round the body of Mark Ingestrie. "Do it? Of course he will. The man who has the heart and hand to try these sort of things, always does them."

"I believe you are right, my friend," said the colonel.

"I know I am, sir. I have seen too much of this sort of thing, and if I had not been a little out of sorts in my larboard leg, I should have gone; but I'm not all right, you see, sir, so it won't do. Ah, there he has him! It's all right enough--I told you so."

The progress of Ingestrie was watched by many eyes with the most intense interest. Under no circumstances was distance so deceiving as at sea; and although the black object in the water, which the practised eye of Ingestrie had shown him, was a man, appeared to be only just without the line of the surf, he (Ingestrie) knew that the distance was, in reality, much greater, and that he would have a good swim through those troubled waters before he could get within arm's-length of the shipwrecked person. To be sure, as the body was drifting to the shore, he made better progress, and the distance between him and it was diminished much more rapidly than as if it had been stationary.

Colonel Jeffrey distinctly saw Ingestrie reach the body, at length, and the sailor who had hold of the rope, likewise saw him, and he sung out--

"Now, pull away; but easy, my lads--a steady pull, and no jerking, or you will hinder him instead of helping. That's it--easy now, easy."

"Ah!" said Ben, who had come down to the beach to see what was going on. "Easy does everything, as I always said. Pray, Colonel Jeffrey, what unfortunate animal is that you are dragging out of the water?"

"Don't you know, Ben?"

"Not I. But I suppose it is some poor half-drowned fellow from the ship."

"It is that, as well, I hope; but the person who is with him, and who is being hauled to the shore, is no other than our friend, Mr. Ingestrie."

"What, Johanna's husband?"

"The same."

"Oh, lor! oh, lor! I'm afraid easy won't do it then, and that my little girl will be a widow. Give me hold of the rope. If pulling will do it, I'll soon have him on shore again all right. The idea, now, of a man, with the nicest young creature of a wife in the world, going into the sea at the end of a rope, and covering himself all over with froth and sea-weed! Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's truly dreadful, it is; and easy certainly don't do it."

Ben would have lent his aid to pull the rope, but the colonel kept him back, as it was not strength but skill and tact that in the process was required, and the rope was in the hands of men who had both.

It was clear that Ingestrie had got hold of the floating object, whatever it was, and that, as he was pulled into shore, he brought it with him. When he reached the edge of the surf again, a quick pull brought him at once through it, and a couple of the sailors, dashing into the waters, got a hold of him, and drew him right up on to the beach between them.

Half a dozen more brought to the shore the body of a man, tied to a plank of wood.

Poor Mark was nearly exhausted. He was just able only to smile faintly in answer to the colonel's anxious inquiries.

"He must be carried home," said the colonel. "Lend me some assistance, my brave fellows, to do so."

"No--no!" Ingestrie managed just to say faintly. "Take him--take him!"

He pointed to the man whom he had rescued, and the colonel immediately said,

"Make yourself easy about him, my dear friend. The sailors will carry him to the house, and if the vital spark has not quite fled, you shall have the pleasure of knowing that you have saved him. But it is yourself that I wish to have got home."

"Can you walk?" said Ben.

"I--don't think--I will try."

Poor Ingestrie did try, but he was really so completely exhausted by the efforts he had made, that it was quite evident that he was unequal to the task of walking along the shingle.

"Give it up," said Ben. "You can't do it."

"He must be carried," said the colonel.

"To be sure he must," said Ben; "and this is the way to do it."

With these words, Ben did not hesitate another moment, but taking Mark Ingestrie in his arms as though he had been an infant, he walked over the pebbly beach with him as easily as though he had been only a very ordinary kind of bundle to carry.

As he went on, it occurred to Ben that Johanna might see him carrying her husband home, and might imagine that some fearful accident had happened to him, so, by way of putting an end to that idea, he kept crying out as he got near the house--

"Here we are! All alive and kicking! It's only a joke. All alive--alive O! Here we are! it's only a joke! All alive! alive! and ready for feeding time!"

CLXXI. A RATHER IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IS MADE

The man, who appeared to be the only one at all--dead or alive--who was preserved from the wreck of the ship off the coast of Sussex, was carried to the house where all our friends were staying, and being taken into the kitchen, was there placed in the care of a couple of medical men, who were hastily sent for, and who quickly restored animation to the seemingly drowned person. It was reported to Ingestrie that the stranger was all right, and as he himself had by that time thoroughly recovered, and had changed his saturated apparel for a dry suit, the news gave him the liveliest satisfaction.

"Well," he said, "it is something that I have not gone through that tremendous surf in vain."

"Yes, Mark," said Johanna, with the tears starting to her eyes, "but we must, indeed, get away from the sea-coast, and then you cannot be tempted to expose your life in such adventures. Only think of what might be the consequences!"

"Yes," said the colonel. "It is hardly fair, although, at the moment, one cannot help admiring the heroism of the act."

"I don't know how it can be avoided," said Ingestrie. "If you see a poor fellow struggling for his life, and you feel that you may save him at a little risk to yourself, it seems a strange thing not to do it."

"It does," said old Mr. Oakley, "and I should be the last to say no to the noble impulse; only if there are to be many storms off his coast, I shall second the resolution of Johanna that you ought to live somewhere else."

"And so shall I," said Arabella.

"And I," said Tobias.

"He's better, they say," cried Ben, popping his head into the room. "The doctors say he is better, and that, after he has had a sleep, he will be all right."

"The sailor belonging to the ship you mean?" said the colonel, "What sort of a person is he, Ben?"

"Haven't seen him yet, so can't tell; but they have made up a good fire in the back kitchen, and he is lying on a sofa there, and going to sleep, and the doctor says it will do him no good to disturb him, or bother him by talking."

"It certainly will not," said Ingestrie. "It matters very little to us who he is, poor fellow. He is saved--that is the principal thing."

"Yes," said Johanna, "that is everything; and, at all events, Mark, there is one human being who through life, let his position and prospects be what they may, must look upon you as his friend and preserver."

"Ah!" said poor Tobias, "We should all be very happy if Sweeney Todd were but in the hands of justice. It is very strange why I tremble so to-day at the thought of him; and I did not tremble yesterday."

"You have no occasion to tremble to-day, nor yesterday either, Tobias," said Arabella. "Remember how surrounded you are by your best friends, and remember, likewise, that, after all, Todd is but a man, and by this time he must be but a poor, weak, dispirited one, and much more intent upon devising means for his own safety, than in carrying out his revenges."

"If, indeed, he lives," said the colonel.

"Just so," said Ingestrie. "My opinion will very much incline to the idea that he is dead, if Sir Richard Blunt does not very shortly get some news of him."

"That will be a pity," said Tobias, "unless it can be proved past all dispute, for while it continues only a likely thing, the dread of him will still cling to my heart, and I shall never be happy."

"Nay, Tobias," said the colonel, "you must pluck up a spirit. The probability is now, that Sweeney Todd, let him be where he may, is much more afraid of meeting you than you can possibly be of meeting him."

"I wish I thought so," said Tobias. "But only look now how sweetly the sun is peeping out on the water after the storm there. This is very beautiful."

Tobias walked to the window; and his praise of the beauty of the morning caused the breakfast-table to be, in a very few minutes, completely deserted. To be sure, the praise that the imaginative boy had lavished upon the young day, was by no means misapplied; for a more lovely day than that which broke over Brighton, after that terrific gale in the Channel, could not be conceived. It seemed as if the good genii of earth, sea, and sky, were striving to banish from the minds of all the inhabitants of that place the recollections of the frightful storm that had made the world dismal and terrific.

"Indeed, it is lovely," said Johanna, "Who, now, to look at that placid sheet of water, with scarce a ripple upon its surface to reflect the sunbeams, would think that only a few hours ago, it presented a scene of such fury that it was a shuddering terror to look upon it?"

"And yet," said Ingestrie, "it is these varieties that make the great world beautiful."

"Not a doubt of it; but they require more stern minds than mine, Mark, to stand them."

The party now, finding that the day was so delightful, sallied out to the beach to make some inquiry among the sailors and boatmen, concerning the damage that the gale had done. The moment Mark Ingestrie appeared with his friends, he was recognised as the person who had performed the gallant exploit of going through the surf to the rescue of the shipwrecked man, and he became immediately the observed of all observers.

This sort of homage was at once flattering and embarrassing to Johanna. She felt proud that it was her husband who was entitled to so much popular consideration and respect, and yet, with her natural timidity of disposition, she shrank from sharing it with him.

Some eager inquiries were made of Ingestrie now, regarding the man he had saved, and it was a great gratification to him to be enabled to state that he was doing well, although he had not himself seen him since he grappled with him in the water, and brought him to the beach.

A few fragments only of the wreck had been washed to the shore, but nothing that could in any way enable them to identify the vessel; so that that was a species of information that must come from the man who had been saved, whenever he should be able to go through the fatigue of an interview with his friend and his deliverer.

After an hour's stroll upon the beach, the party, at a slow pace, returned to the house they had hired during their stay at Brighton. The moment they got to the door, the colonel's servant appeared with his horse, which he had ordered to be ready for him at twelve o'clock.

"Just walk him up and down," said the colonel, to the man; "I shall be ready in a few minutes. Hilloa! my friend, Hector, are you here?"

The dog was with the horse, and the man said, touching his hat--

"We were half a mind, sir, to let Hector loose last night during the storm, for he is a famous fellow in the water; but knowing how much you valued him, we were afraid to do so."

"I am glad you didn't," said the colonel. "You were quite right to keep him shut up. I would not have him come to any mischief for any money."

The colonel entered the house, and when he and all his friends had got into the drawing-room, they sent for a servant to inquire how the poor wrecked man was getting on; and after a little time, one of the domestics of the house came to say that he was up and sitting, dressed, in the front kitchen, and would be happy to see, and to thank those who had saved him from death in the raging sea.

"Shall we have him up here?" said the colonel.

"Yes, if you please," said Ingestrie; "and, I daresay, a glass of wine won't hurt him, while he tells us the name of his ship, poor fellow, and who and what he is."

"Certainly not," said Mr. Oakley. "I will get out the decanter."

"Allow me, my dear," said Mrs. Oakley. "You know you always break every glass that you interfere with."

"Oh, stuff!"

"But I say, Mr. Oakley, that you do."

"Easy does it," said Ben, in his deepest bass voice. "Easy does it, I say--Easy!"

"How cold I am," said Tobias.

"Cold, Tobias!" said Ingestrie. "My good fellow, we will have a fire if you are cold."

"Oh, no--no. Not on my account, Mr. Ingestrie, I shall be better soon; but I feel as if something were going to happen. My heart beats so fearfully, and at the same time, I shake as if--as if--I know not what."

"Give him a glass of wine," said Ingestrie to Johanna.

Tobias took the glass of wine, and it evidently did him some good; but yet he looked ill and uneasy. Orders were given that the shipwrecked man should be shown up to the drawing-room, for they were all curious to know to what ship he had belonged, and how many had fallen victims to the frightful gale that had made the vessel such a complete wreck.

"He is coming, poor fellow," said the colonel. "I hear his footsteps on the stairs. He comes slowly. No doubt he is weak yet."

"Poor fellow!" sighed Johanna. "Have the wine ready to give him at once, mother. It will put some heart into him. What must be his feelings towards you, Mark?"

"Come now," said Ingestrie; "don't plague him, any of you, about his being saved by me, and all that sort of thing. Just say nothing about it. Sailors are no great orators, at the best of times, and if he begins to make a speech about his gratitude, you may depend he will never get to the end of it."

"Yes; but he ought to know," said Mrs. Oakley, "who he owes his life to, under providence."

"Hem!" said Ben. He never liked to hear Mrs. Oakley begin to use religious phrases, as they had a tendency to remind him of the late Mr. Lupin.

The door of the drawing-room opened, and all eyes were eagerly bent in that direction. A servant came in, and said--

"The poor man is here, if you please. Is he to come in, now? He seems rather timid."

"Oh, yes," said Ingestrie, "let him come in, by all manner of means, poor fellow. He and I made acquaintance in the sea, and we ought to be good friends, now."

A tall, gigantic figure marched three paces into the room.

"Todd!" shouted Tobias. "It is Todd!"

It was Sweeney Todd! With one glance round the room, he recognised an enemy in every face. With a perfect yell of fear and rage, he turned, and dashed down the staircase. The servant who had conducted him up to the drawing-room, and whom he met in his way, he knocked down with one blow, and in another moment he was in the street. The colonel's horse was close to the door. Todd felled the man who held it by a blow on the top of the head, that took him so suddenly, he could not guard against it, and then springing upon the horse, the murderer raised another wild unearthly kind of shout, and set off at a gallop.

So sudden--so totally unexpected, and so appalling had been the presence of Todd in the drawing-room, that if a spectre had appeared among the people there assembled, and they had had no possible means of escaping from the belief that it was a spectre, they could not have been more confounded than they were upon this occasion.

Poor Tobias, after uttering the exclamation that we have recorded, fell flat upon the floor. Ben swung backwards in his chair, and went with a tremendous crash right away into a corner. Ingestrie and the colonel rose together, and impeded each other in their efforts to follow Todd. Johanna, shrieking, clung to Ingestrie, and Arabella made a vain attempt to delay the colonel.

"By Heaven he is off!" cried the colonel, as he heard the clatter of the horse's feet.

"No!" shouted Ingestrie; "it cannot be!"

"Easy does it," said Ben, from the corner into which he had fallen. "Easy--Easy!"

"Johanna, unhand me, I implore you," cried Mark Ingestrie. "Do you wish the murderer to be lost sight of? Come on, colonel--you and I must engage in this pursuit. God of Heaven! the idea of me saving Todd from the waves!"

The colonel and Ingestrie seized their hats, and rushed down the stairs, tumbling over the servant in the hall. The next object they came across was the groom who had had charge of the horse. They found him sitting on the pavement, looking as confused as possible.

"Which way has he gone?" cried the colonel.

"The--the man. Round that corner, and Hector has gone after him, like mad, sir. Oh, dear!"

"Hector? Then he will be taken, for I will back Hector to hang upon him like grim death. Come with me to the nearest stable, Ingestrie, and let us get horses! Come--come!"

CLXXII. THE PURSUIT OF TODD ON THE LONDON ROAD

The whole of these proceedings had really come with such a rush upon the senses of Mark Ingestrie, that he might well have been excused had he not been able to act with the energy that he did; but the strong desire to capture Sweeney Todd, and so to put an end to all the doubts and fears that were felt concerning him, upon the parts of those to whom he was fondly attached, roused the young man to action.

Colonel Jeffrey was cooler than Ingestrie in the affair; but he was not a whit the less determined upon that account.

In the course of seven or eight minutes at the outside, they were both mounted, and as there were plenty of people who could tell them in which direction Todd had gone, they were soon upon his track.

Todd had taken the London Road, and had really got a considerable distance onward, and if he had been, which he was far from being, a good horseman, there is very little doubt but that he would either have led his pursuers a long distance, or possibly escaped them altogether, for the animal that he rode was one that in skilful hands would have done wonders.

It was no small aggravation to Colonel Jeffrey to be pursuing his own horse, while he himself was mounted upon a hack that was by no means equal to it.

Skill, however, will get more work out of an indifferent steed than absolute ignorance will achieve from a first-rate one, so that after getting to the top of a rising ground about three miles out of Brighton, our friends saw Todd not three quarters of a mile in advance, coasting a little water-course to find a safe place to cross at. Notwithstanding the distance was great, the colonel knew his own horse in a moment.

"Come on, Ingestrie," he said. "There he is!"

"Are you sure?"

"Quite. That's the rascal. Ah, there he goes through the water! The horse will carry him well across it, but he did not know that, so it is a bold step. On--on!"

They had let their horses come rather easy up the ascent, for the colonel was too good a horseman to break down his steed, merely with an useless burst, when there might be a chase before it of some twenty or thirty miles yet, for all he knew to the contrary; and so, as the country, from the hill-top, sloped very gently right away to the north, they got on wonderfully, and without giving the cattle too much to do.

To keep Todd in sight was everything now, for in that case they felt certain that they must eventually have him. From his actions, it did not seem that he was at all aware of his being so closely pursued, but suddenly they saw him pull up on an eminence and turn his horse's head in the direction of Brighton. They saw him shade his eyes with his hands, and take a long look, and then by the sudden start that he gave, and which caused the horse to plunge in alarm, they knew that he had seen them, and that from that moment he would strain every nerve to escape.

The slight pause that Todd had made in order to look back and see if he were pursued or not, had given his foes the advantage of about one hundred yards, for they had pushed on during that pause with renewed vigour; but now bending low in the saddle, it was evident that he was doing his best to urge the colonel's horse onwards, and it went like the wind.

"There he goes, colonel!" cried Ingestrie. "That pace will do for us pretty quickly. He is leaving us behind fast enough."

"He is, by Heaven, and if he gets to a turn of the road, there is no knowing what fox-like trick he may play us. On--on, Ingestrie! There is no help for it, but to do our very best."

For another minute and a half, now, not a word was exchanged between the friends. The road did take a turn, and for some time they were out of all sight of Todd, but the moment they themselves got round the elbow of the road, the colonel raised a shout of gratification, and then cried--

"There he is! He has had a fall. On--on!"

Todd was in the middle of the road-way trying to mount the horse, from which it would appear as though he had been thrown, for the creature was rearing in evident alarm, and swerving every time that Todd put his foot in the stirrup. Maddened, then, at the idea that each moment his foes were gaining upon him, Todd made such a vigorous effort to mount, that he succeeded in doing so, although both his feet were out of the stirrups. He clung to the horse with desperation, and kicked it violently with his heels, striking it at the same time on the head violently with his clenched fist.

The animal was driven half crazy by such unusual treatment, and after plunging and rearing for a few seconds, set off at such a gallop as no one could have believed any mortal horse could have achieved.

"Off again!" cried the colonel. "I could have shot him, I think, Ingestrie, just now."

"Then, why, in the name of all that's tantalising, did you not do so?"

"Why, to tell the truth, I was afraid of hitting the horse. If it had kept still for a moment, it would have been all right; but I could not be certain of my aim as it was. Now, mind, we must have him, and I think he begins to find that fact out."

Certainly, if any judgment could be come to, by the desperate manner in which Todd rode, it would appear as though he considered his career as all but at an end. Oh, how at that time he roared and raved that he had no fire-arms, by the aid of which he might turn and cope with his foes! If he had only had but a pair of pistols, he thought that not only would he have escaped, but escaped likewise with the intense gratification of destroying two of his enemies; but, then, he was totally unarmed, and if they should succeed in coming up with him, he had not even the means of self-destruction about him.

Indifferent horseman, however, as Todd was, even he could not help seeing that he was far better mounted than those who were pursuing him and so, from that circumstance, he gathered just a faint hope that he might distance them by knocking up their steeds. From what he had already experienced of the mettle of the horse he had got hold of so providentially for him, he felt certain that if his pursuers were obliged to come to a pause only for a quarter of an hour, he should be able to place such a distance between him and them, that he might consider himself to be in comparative, if not absolute safety.

To accomplish such a result, then, he felt that his plan was to keep right on within their sight, and let them sooner be tired out by the unwonted exertions that they would compel their inefficient cattle to make, with the vain hope of overtaking him. But Todd had to do with a man, in Colonel Jeffrey, who was quite equal to such an emergency.

A stern chace is a long chace, but an escape even at considerable speed is a weary affair, with a foe directly behind; and the colonel calculated that allowing Todd all the difference in speed between the horses, it would be yet a long distance before he could throw them back so far that they would not be in a position to take advantage of any accident that might occur to him.

"Cool and easy, Ingestrie," he said; "it's a question of time, now. The longer we can keep our horses on their legs, the better for us. Don't urge your horse too much."

Todd had now reached a very wild and romantic part of the road. It wound through a cutting in a mass of chalk, which, as it would be impossible to surmount, and a tedious thing to go round, had been very roughly levelled to the width of a road, and the sides were covered with rank vegetation, for successive rains had washed down upon the face of the chalk a facing of loam, from which had sprung up gigantic weeds, and innumerable wild flowers.

Todd had got about half way through this place, when, from the other end of it, there came a party of five horsemen.

One man rode at the head of the party upon a black horse, which had evidently gone far that day. Todd and this man met face to face, and they simultaneously pronounced each other's names.

"Sir Richard Blunt!" shrieked Todd.

"Sweeney Todd!" said the magistrate.

"Stop him!" shouted Ingestrie, as he and the colonel just got a sight of the horsemen beyond Todd. "Stop him!"

With a yell, like that which might be supposed to come from a fiend, Todd swerved from the grasp of Sir Richard Blunt, who made a dart at his throat, and then, drawing up his knees, he gave his horse the rein, and darting past Sir Richard, he dashed right into the midst of the party of officers, who were behind, and fairly broke his way through them.

"Not yet--not yet!" he shouted. "Ha!--ha! not yet!"

"Fire!" cried Sir Richard Blunt.

The sharp report of four holster-pistols sounded in the narrow road-way. Todd fell from his horse, and, terrified by the shots, the steed went off without him at a mad gallop.

Twice Todd rolled over, and grasped handfuls of chalk and dust from the road; and then he lay upon his back profoundly still. In an instant, Sir Richard Blunt dismounted; and then Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie rode up to the spot.

"You have--have--" cried Ingestrie.

"Yes, at last, Mr. Ingestrie," said Sir Richard. "I had some information that he was hovering about the coast, and came here to see you all. I am sorry to defraud the gallows of its due: but there lies Todd!"

A couple of the officers now dismounted, while the others held their horses, and they dragged the wretched man to the side of the road.

"Is he dead?" said Ingestrie.

"No," said Todd, opening his eyes. "He still lives to curse you all! I--"

It was evident that he wished to say more; but he was bleeding internally, and he began to struggle with the volumes of blood that rose to his throat. With a horrible shriek, he rolled over on to his face, and then, after one sharp convulsion of his limbs, he lay perfectly still.

One of the officers turned him round again. One glance at the face was sufficient. The guilty spirit of Sweeney Todd had fled at last to its account!

"Dead," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Let the body lie here, and we will all ride on to Brighton, and from there send some conveyance for it. Mr. Ingestrie and you, Colonel Jeffrey, are witnesses of his end, and I can only say that I feel now as if a heavy weight were lifted off my breast. The good, and the kind, and true, need no longer live in fear of the wild vengeance of this man. Let us hope that Heaven will have more mercy upon his guilty soul than ever he had consideration for the sufferings of others."

CLXXIII. THE CONCLUSION

We have little to say in conclusion, now that the chief actor in the fearful Domestic Drama it has been our fate to record, is no more. Todd was buried in the old church-yard at Brighton, but no record of the spot where the murderer's bones decayed was preserved.

Sir Richard Blunt lived long to enjoy the respect and the admiration of all who knew him, and died full of years and honours.

The sunshine of the existence of Johanna and Mark was perfectly unclouded, and the colonel and Arabella, likewise, presented a true picture of connubial felicity. In due time Tobias was married to her whom he loved so well; and as he got older and more used to the world, that timidity of disposition that Todd by his cruelties had induced, entirely left him.

Ben did not marry after all, and he never ceased to congratulate himself upon his escape. Mr. and Mrs. Oakley were happy in the happiness of Johanna.

The mad-house at Peckham was completely pulled down, and in the well at the back of it was found the skeleton of the wretched victim of Fogg's villany. It was by his own hand that Fogg really died.

Often as Johanna would sit on a winter's evening, with her children climbing upon her knee, she would, with a faltering voice, tell them what their dear father had suffered to procure for her and for them THE STRING OF PEARLS.

PUBLISHED BY E. LLOYD, SALISBURY-SQUARE, FLEET-STREET.

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Transcriber's note:

Archaic and colloquial spelling and punctuation were retained.

Chapter numbers were retained, even when mis-numbered.

Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

Typographical errors were silently corrected. Three unpaired double quotation marks could not be corrected with confidence.