Stranica 237 [237]
179
person in the adjoining room.
s Is that the woman?"
scarcely above his breath.
The Jew nodded " yes,"
sc [ can’t see her face well,” whispered
Noah. “She is looking down, and the
candle is behind her.”
“Stay there,” whispered Fagin. He
signed to Barney, who withdrew. In an
he asked,
ing, and under pretence of snufling the
tion, and speaking to the girl, caused her
to raise her face.
“T see her now,” cried the spy.
“ Plainly?” asked the Jew.
He hastily descended as the room-door
opened, cad the girl came out. Fagin
drew him behind a small partition which
was curtained off, and they held their
breath as she passed within a few feet of
their place of concealment, and emerged
by the door at which they had entered.
“ Hist!" cried the lad who held the
door. ‘ Noah.”
Noah exchanged a look with Fagin,
and darted out.
“To the left," whispered the lad.
s Take the left hand, and keep on the
other side."
He did so, and by the light of the lam
saw the girl’s retreating figure already
at some distance before him. He ad¬
vanced as near as he considered prudent,
and kept on the opposite side of the street,
the better to observe her motions. She
looked nervously round twice or thrice,
and once stopped to let two men who
were following close behind her pass on.
She seemed to gather courage as she ad¬
vanced, and to walk with a steadier and
firmer step. The spy preserved the same
lowed with his eye upon her.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
The appointment kept.
THE church clocks chimed three quar¬
ters past eleven, as two figures emerged
on London Bridge. One which advanced
with a swift and rapid step, was that of
a woman, who looked eagerly about her
as though in quest of some expected ob¬
ject; the other figure was that of a man,
who slunk along in the deepest shadow
he could find, and at some distance, ac¬
pace to hers, stopping
when she stopped, and as she moved,
a creeping stealthily on; but never
lowing himself, in the ardour of his pur¬
suit, to gain upon her footsteps. ‘Thus
they crossed the bridge from the Middle¬
sex to the Surrey shore, where the wo¬
man, apparently disappointed in her
anxious scrutiny of the foot-passengers,
turned back. The movement was sudden,
but he who watched her was not thrown
off his guard by it; for shrinking into
one of the recesses which surmount the
piers of the bridge, and leaning over the
rapet the better to conceal his figure,
e sufiered her to pass by on the opposite
pavement; and when she was about the
same distance in advanee as she had been
before, he slipped quietly down and fol¬
lowed her again. At nearly the centre
of the bridge she stopped. The man
stopped too.
It was a very dark night. The day
had been unfavourable, and at that hour
and place there were few people stirring.
Such as there were hurried quickly past,
very possibly without seeing, but certain¬
ly without noticing, either the woman or
the man who kept her in view. Their
appearance was not calculated to attract
the importunate regards of such of Lon¬
don’s destitute population as chanced to
take their way over the bridge that night
in search of some cold arch or doorless
hovel whereon to lay their head. They
stood there in silence, neither speaking
nor spoken to by any one who passed.
A mist hung over the river, deepening
the glare of the fires that burnt upon the
small craft moored off the different wharfs,
and rendering darker and more indistinct
the murky buildings on the banks. The
old smoke-stained storehouses on either
side rose heavy and dull from the dense
mass of roofs and gables, and frowned
sternly upon water too black to reflect
even their lumbering shapes. The tower
of old Saint Saviour’S chureh, and the
spire of Saint Magnus, so long the giant
warders of the ancient bridge, were visi¬
ble in the gloom, but the forest of shipping
below the bridge, and the thickly scat¬
tered spires of churches above, were near¬
ly all hidden from the sight.
The girl had taken a few restless turns
to and fro—closely watched, meanwhile,
by her hidden observer—when the heavy
bell of Saint Paul’s tolled for the death of
another day. Midnight had come upon
the crowded city. The palace, the night¬
cellar, the jail, the mad-house, the cham¬
bers of birth and death, of health and