Oldal 235 [235]
OCR
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 working 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 desperate impatience to leave home that night at a particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it—to him at least —ualmost a matter of certainty. ‘The object of this new liking was not among his myrmidons. He would be a valuable acquisition 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 recent 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 afforded 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 comprethat. 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 acSuch brains are fertile in expedients. If without extracting a confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her altered regard, and threatened 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 threatening 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. " Morris 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 better when I talk,” said Noah, cutting a
