Stranica 261 [261]
199
“In the King’s name,” cried voices
without; and the hoarse cry rose again,
but louder.
boy. “I tell you they’ll never open it.
Run straight to the room where the light
is. Break down the door.” |
Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon
the door and lower window-shutters as he
ceased to speak,—and a loud huzza burst
from the crowd—giving the listener, for
the first time, some adequate idea of its
immense extent.
“Open the door of some place where
I can lock this sereeching hell-babe,”
cried Sikes fiercely, running to and fro,
and dragging the boy, now, as easily as
if he were an empty sack. § That door.
Quick.” He flung him in, bolted it and
turned the key. “Is the down-stairs door
fast !"
“ Double-locked and chained,” replied
Crackit, who, with the other two men,
still remained quite helpless and bewil¬
dered.
“ The panels, are they strong ?”
c Lined with sheet-iron.”
“ And the windows too ?”’
(c Yes, and the windows.”
“Damn you,” cried the desperate ruf¬
fian, throwing up the sash and menacing
the crowd, “do your worst; I’ll cheat
you yet!"
Of all the terrific yells that ever fell
on mortal ears, none could exceed the cry
of that infuriated throng—some shouted
to those who were nearest to set the
house on fire; others roared to the offi¬
cers to shoot him dead. Among them all,
none showed such fury as the man on
horseback, who, throwing himself out of
the saddle and bursting through the crowd
as if he were parting water, cried beneath
the window in a voice that rose above all
others, “ Twenty guineas to the man who
brings a ladder.”
The nearest voices took up the cry, and
a hundred echoed it. Some called for
ladders, some for sledgehammers; some
ran with torches to and fro as if to seek
them, and still came back and roared
again; some spent their breath in impo¬
tent curses and execrations; some pressed
forward with the ecstasy of madmen, and
thus impeded the progress of those below ;
some among the boldest attempted to
climb up by the water-spout and crevices
in the wall; and all waved to and fro in
the darkness beneath, like a field of corn
moved by an angry wind, and joined from
time to time in one loud, furious roar.
*“ The tide !”’ cried the murderer, as he
staggered back into the room and shut
the faces out. “The tide was in asl
came up. Give me a rope, a long rope.
I may drop into the
Folly Ditch, and clear off that way. Give
me a rope, or I shall do three more mur¬
ders and kill myself at last.”
The panic-stricken men pointed to
where such articles were kept; the mur¬
derer, hastily selecting the longest and
strongest cord, hurried up to the house¬
top.
‘All the windows in the rear of the
house had been long ago bricked up ex¬
cept one small trap in the room where
the boy was locked, and that was too
small even for the passage of his body.
But from this aperture he had never ceased
to call on those without to guard the back,
and thus, when the murderer emerged at
last on the house-top, by the door in the
roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to
those in front, who immediately began to
pour round, pressing upon each other in
one unbroken stream.
He planted a board, which he had car¬
ried up with him for the purpose, so firmly
against the door that it must be matter of
great difficulty to open it from the inside,
and creeping over the tiles, looked over
the low parapet.
The water was out, and the ditch a bed
of mud.
The crowd had been hushed during
these few moments, watching his motions
and doubtful of his purpose, but the in¬
stant they perceived it and knew it was
defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant
execration, to which all their previous
shoutings had been whispers. Again and
again it rose ; those who were at too ave
a distance to know its meaning, took up
the sound; it echoed and re-echoed ; it
seemed as though the whole city had
poured its population out to curse him,
On pre the people from the front
—on, on, on, in one strong strugglin
current of angry faces, with here an
there a glaring torch to light them up
and show them out in all their wrath and
passion. The houses on the opposite side
of the ditch had been entered by the mob;
sashes were thrown up or torn bodily out;
there were tiers and tiers of faces in
every window, and cluster upon cluster
of people clinging to every house-top.
Each little bridge (and there were three
in sight) bent beneath the weight of the
crowd upon it, and still the current pour
ed on to find some nook or hole from
which to vent their shouts, and only for
an instant see the wretch,