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195 meditating with dark and evil looks on this proposal, and the possibilities of evading it—torn by his fears on the one hand, and his hatred on the other—the door was hurriedly unlocked, and a gentleman —Mr. Losberne—entered the room in violent agitation. “The man will be taken,” he cried. ‘¢ He will be taken to-night.” “The murderer?” asked Mr. Brownlow. “ Yes, yes,” replied the other. “ His dog has been seen lurking about some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is, or will be there under cover of the darkness. Spies are hovering about in every direction. I have spoken to the men who are charged with his capture, and they tell me he can never escape. A reward of a hundred pounds is proclaimed by government tonight.” “T will give fifty more," said Mr. Brownlow, “and proclaim it with my own lips upon the spot, if I can reach it. Where is Mr. Maylie?" “ Harry ?” 6 As soon as he had seen your friend here safe in a coach with you, he turned off to where he heard this;” replied the doctor; ‘* and mounting his horse, sallied forth to join the first party at some place in the outskirts agreed upon between . them.” “The Jew,” 6 What of him?” c When I last heard, he had not been taken; but he will be, or is by this time. They’re sure of him.” “Have you made up your mind?” asked Mr. Brownlow, in a low voice, of Monks. “ Yes,” he replied. be secret with me?” “T will. Remain here till I return; it is a only hope of safety.” hey left the room, and the door was again locked. “ What have you done?” asked the doctor, in a whisper. 6 All that I could hope to do, and even more. Coupling the poor girl’s intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of. our on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare the villany, which, = these lights, became plain as day. rite, and appoint the evening after tomorrow, at seven, for the meeting. We shall be down there a few hours before, but shall require rest, and especially the young lady, who may have greater need said Mr. Brownlow. 6 You—you—will of firmness than either you or I can quite foresee just now. But my blood boils to avenge this poor murdered creature— " which way have they taken?" “ Drive straight to the office, and you will be in time,” replied Mr. Losberne. “| will remain here.” The two gentlemen hastily separated ; each in a fever of excitement wholly uncontrollable. ad CHAPTER THE TWELFTH. The pursuit and escape. Near to that part of the Thames on which the church of Rotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest, and the vessels on the river blackest with the dust of colliers, and the smoke of close-built, low-roofed houses, there exists at the present day, the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown by name to the great mass of its inhabitants. To reach this place, the visiter has to penetrate through a maze of close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and poorest of water-side people, and devoted to the traffic they may be supposed to occasion. ‘The cheapest and least delicate provisions are heaped in the shops, the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing apparel dangle at the salesman’s door, and stream from the house parapet and windows. Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the very raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of ponderous wagons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks of warehouses that rise from every corner. Arriving at length in streets remoter and less-frequented than those through which he had passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts projecting over the pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he passes, chimneys half crushed, half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by rusty iron bars, that time and dust have almost eaten away, and every imaginable sign of desolation and neglect. In such a neighbourhood, beyond Dockhead, in the rough of Southwark, stands Jacob’s Island, surrounded by a
