Oldal 235 [235]
177
you (he’s a brute, Nance, a brute beast,)
why don’t you——”
s Well!" said the girl, as «agin paused
with his mouth almost touching her ear,
and his eyes looking into hers.
6 No matter just now," said the Jew,
“we'll talk of this again. You have a
friend in me, Nance, a staunch friend. I
have the means at hand, quiet and close.
If you want revenge on those that treat
bq like a dog—tlike a dog! worse than
is dog, for he humours him sometimes—
come tome. Isay come to me. He is
the mere hound of a day, but you know
me of old, Nance—of old."
s] know you well,” replied the girl,
without manifesting the least emotion.
c Good night.”
Fagin offered to
She shrunk back as
lay his hand on her, but said good night
again in a steady voice, and, answering
his parting look with a nod of intelligence,
closed the door between them. |
Fagin walked towards his own house,
intent upon the thoughts that were work¬
ing within his brain. He had conceived
the idea—not from what had just passed,
though that had tended to confirm hin—
but slowly and by degrees, that Nancy,
wearied of the house-breaker’s brutality,
had conceived an attachment for some
new friend. Her altered manner, her
repeated absences from home alone, her
comparative indifference to the interests
of the gang for which she had once been
so zealous, and added to these her despe¬
rate impatience to leave home that night
at a particular hour, all favoured the sup¬
position, and rendered it—to him at least
—ualmost a matter of certainty. ‘The ob¬
ject of this new liking was not among his
myrmidons. He would be a valuable ac¬
quisition with such an assistant as Nancy,
and must (so Fagin argued) be secured
without delay.
There was another and a darker object
to be gained. Sikes knew too much, and
his ruffian taunts had not galled the Jew
the less because the wounds were hidden.
The giri must know well that if she shook
him off, she could never be safe from his
fury, and that it would be surely wreaked
—to the maiming of limbs or perhaps the
loss of life—on the object of her more re¬
cent fancy. ‘ With a little persuasion,”
thought Fagin, “ what more likely than
that she would consent to poison him?
Women have done such things and worse,
to secure the same object, before now.
There would be the dangerous villain—
the man I hate—gone ; another secured
in his place, and ay es over the
irl, with the knowledge of this crime to
ck it, unlimited,"
These things passed through the mind
of Fagin during the short time he sat
alone in the housebreaker’s room; and
with them uppermost in his thoughts he
had taken the opportunity afterwards af¬
forded him of sounding the girl in the
broken hints he threw out at parting.
There was no expression of surprise, no
assumption of an inability to understand
his meaning. The girl clearly compre¬
that.
But perhaps she would recoil from a
plot to take the life of Sikes, and that was
one of the chief ends to be attamed.
“ How”—thought the Jew as he crept
homewards, “ can I increase my influence
with her? What new power can I ac¬
Such brains are fertile in expedients.
If without extracting a confession from
herself, he laid a watch, discovered the
object of her altered regard, and threat¬
ened to reveal the whole history to Sikes
(of whom she stood in no common ad
unless she entered into his designs, co
he not secure her compliance ?
“T can,” said Fagin almost aloud.
“She durst not refuse me then—not for
her life, not for her life. I have it all.
The means are ready ! and I shall set to
work; I shall have you yet.”
He cast back a dark look and a threat¬
ening motion of the hand towards the spot
where he had left the bolder villain, and
went on his way, burying his bony hands
in the folds of his tattered garment, and
wrenching them tightly in his grasp, as
though there were a hated enemy crushed
with every motion of his fingers.
He rose betimes next morning, and
waited impatiently for the appearance of
his new associate, who, after a delay that
seemed interminable, at length presented
himself and commenced a voracious as
sault upon the breakfast.
c Bolter,” said the Jew, drawing up a
chair, and seating himself opposite. " Mor¬
ris Bolter.”
“Well, here I am,” returned Noah.
«“ What’s the matter. Don’t yer ask me
to do anything till I have done eating.
That’s a great fault in this place. Yer
never get time enough over yer meals.”
“You can talk as you eat, can’t you ?"
said Fagin, cursing his dear young friend’s
greediness from the very bottom of his
heart.
«Oh! yes, I can talk; I can get on bet¬
ter when I talk,” said Noah, cutting a