THE FLIGHT OF SIKES
Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been committed with
wide London's bounds since night hung over it, that was the worst. Of all the
horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest
and most cruel.
The sun--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and
hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant
glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral
dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray. It lighted up the room where the
murdered woman lay. It did. He tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. If
the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all
that brilliant light!
He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. There had been a moan and
motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had struck and struck
again. Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy the eyes, and
imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching
the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on
the ceiling. He had plucked it off again. And there was the body--mere flesh and
blood, nor more--but such flesh, and so much blood!
He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it. There was
hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, and, caught by
the air, whirled up the chimney. Even that frightened him, sturdy as he was; but
he held the weapon till it broke, and then piled it on the coals to burn away,
and smoulder into ashes. He washed himself, and rubbed his clothes; there were
spots that would not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them. How
those stains were dispersed about the room! The very feet of the dog were
bloody.
All this time he had, never once, turned his back upon the corpse; no, not
for a moment. Such preparations completed, he moved, backward, towards the door:
dragging the dog with him, lest he should soil his feet anew and carry out new
evidence of the crime into the streets. He shut the door softly, locked it, took
the key, and left the house.
He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that nothing was
visible from the outside. There was the curtain still drawn, which she would
have opened to admit the light she never saw again. It lay nearly under there.
HE knew that. God, how the sun poured down upon the very spot!
The glance was instantaneous. It was a relief to have got free of the room.
He whistled on the dog, and walked rapidly away.
He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate on which stands the
stone in honour of Whittington; turned down to Highgate Hill, unsteady of
purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck off to the right again, almost as
soon as he began to descend it; and taking the foot-path across the fields,
skirted Caen Wood, and so came on Hampstead Heath. Traversing the hollow by the
Vale of Heath, he mounted the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins
the villages of Hampstead and Highgate, made along the remaining portion of the
heath to the fields at North End, in one of which he laid himself down under a
hedge, and slept.
Soon he was up again, and away,--not far into the country, but back towards
London by the high-road--then back again--then over another part of the same
ground as he already traversed--then wandering up and down in fields, and lying
on ditches' brinks to rest, and starting up to make for some other spot, and do
the same, and ramble on again.
Where could he go, that was near and not too public, to get some meat and
drink? Hendon. That was a good place, not far off, and out of most people's way.
Thither he directed his steps,--running sometimes, and sometimes, with a strange
perversity, loitering at a snail's pace, or stopping altogether and idly
breaking the hedges with a stick. But when he got there, all the people he
met--the very children at the doors--seemed to view him with suspicion. Back he
turned again, without the courage to purchase bit or drop, though he had tasted
no food for many hours; and once more he lingered on the Heath, uncertain where
to go.
He wandered over miles and miles of ground, and still came back to the old
place. Morning and noon had passed, and the day was on the wane, and still he
rambled to and fro, and up and down, and round and round, and still lingered
about the same spot. At last he got away, and shaped his course for Hatfield.
It was nine o'clock at night, when the man, quite tired out, and the dog,
limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down the hill by the
church of the quiet village, and plodding along the little street, crept into a
small public-house, whose scanty light had guided them to the spot. There was a
fire in the tap-room, and some country-labourers were drinking before it.
They made room for the stranger, but he sat down in the furthest corner, and
ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog: to whom he cast a morsel of food
from time to time.
The conversation of the men assembled here, turned upon the neighboring land,
and farmers; and when those topics were exhausted, upon the age of some old man
who had been buried on the previous Sunday; the young men present considering
him very old, and the old men present declaring him to have been quite
young--not older, one white-haired grandfather said, than he was--with ten or
fifteen year of life in him at least--if he had taken care; if he had taken
care.
There was nothing to attract attention, or excite alarm in this. The robber,
after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed in his corner, and had
almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened by the noisy entrance of a new
comer.
This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who travelled
about the country on foot to vend hones, stops, razors, washballs,
harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap perfumery, cosmetics, and
such-like wares, which he carried in a case slung to his back. His entrance was
the signal for various homely jokes with the countrymen, which slackened not
until he had made his supper, and opened his box of treasures, when he
ingeniously contrived to unite business with amusement.
'And what be that stoof? Good to eat, Harry?' asked a grinning countryman,
pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner.
'This,' said the fellow, producing one, 'this is the infallible and
invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt, mildew,
spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen, cambrick, cloth, crape,
stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or woollen stuff. Wine-stains,
fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains,
all come out at one rub with the infallible and invaluable composition. If a
lady stains her honour, she has only need to swallow one cake and she's cured at
once--for it's poison. If a gentleman wants to prove this, he has only need to
bolt one little square, and he has put it beyond question--for it's quite as
satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a great deal nastier in the flavour,
consequently the more credit in taking it. One penny a square. With all these
virtues, one penny a square!'
There were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners plainly hesitated.
The vendor observing this, increased in loquacity.
'It's all bought up as fast as it can be made,' said the fellow. 'There are
fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic battery, always
a-working upon it, and they can't make it fast enough, though the men work so
hard that they die off, and the widows is pensioned directly, with twenty pound
a-year for each of the children, and a premium of fifty for twins. One penny a
square! Two half-pence is all the same, and four farthings is received with joy.
One penny a square! Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains,
paint-stains, pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains! Here is a stain upon the
hat of a gentleman in company, that I'll take clean out, before he can order me
a pint of ale.'
'Hah!' cried Sikes starting up. 'Give that back.'
'I'll take it clean out, sir,' replied the man, winking to the company,
'before you can come across the room to get it. Gentlemen all, observe the dark
stain upon this gentleman's hat, no wider than a shilling, but thicker than a
half-crown. Whether it is a wine-stain, fruit-stain, beer-stain, water-stain,
paint-stain, pitch-stain, mud-stain, or blood-stain--'
The man got no further, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation overthrew the
table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the house.
With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had fastened upon
him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding that he was not followed,
and that they most probably considered him some drunken sullen fellow, turned
back up the town, and getting out of the glare of the lamps of a stage-coach
that was standing in the street, was walking past, when he recognised the mail
from London, and saw that it was standing at the little post-office. He almost
knew what was to come; but he crossed over, and listened.
The guard was standing at the door, waiting for the letter-bag. A man,
dressed like a game-keeper, came up at the moment, and he handed him a basket
which lay ready on the pavement.
'That's for your people,' said the guard. 'Now, look alive in there, will
you. Damn that 'ere bag, it warn't ready night afore last; this won't do, you
know!'
'Anything new up in town, Ben?' asked the game-keeper, drawing back to the
window-shutters, the better to admire the horses.
'No, nothing that I knows on,' replied the man, pulling on his gloves.
'Corn's up a little. I heerd talk of a murder, too, down Spitalfields way, but I
don't reckon much upon it.'
'Oh, that's quite true,' said a gentleman inside, who was looking out of the
window. 'And a dreadful murder it was.'
'Was it, sir?' rejoined the guard, touching his hat. 'Man or woman, pray,
sir?'
'A woman,' replied the gentleman. 'It is supposed--'
'Now, Ben,' replied the coachman impatiently.
'Damn that 'ere bag,' said the guard; 'are you gone to sleep in there?'
'Coming!' cried the office keeper, running out.
'Coming,' growled the guard. 'Ah, and so's the young 'ooman of property
that's going to take a fancy to me, but I don't know when. Here, give hold. All
ri--ight!'
The horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was gone.
Sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by what he had just
heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a doubt where to go. At length
he went back again, and took the road which leads from Hatfield to St. Albans.
He went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and plunged into the
solitude and darkness of the road, he felt a dread and awe creeping upon him
which shook him to the core. Every object before him, substance or shadow, still
or moving, took the semblance of some fearful thing; but these fears were
nothing compared to the sense that haunted him of that morning's ghastly figure
following at his heels. He could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the
smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk
along. He could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of
wind came laden with that last low cry. If he stopped it did the same. If he
ran, it followed--not running too: that would have been a relief: but like a
corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on one slow melancholy
wind that never rose or fell.
At times, he turned, with desperate determination, resolved to beat this
phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose on his head, and
his blood stood still, for it had turned with him and was behind him then. He
had kept it before him that morning, but it was behind now--always. He leaned
his back against a bank, and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against
the cold night-sky. He threw himself upon the road--on his back upon the road.
At his head it stood, silent, erect, and still--a living grave-stone, with its
epitaph in blood.
Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must
sleep. There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that
agony of fear.
There was a shed in a field he passed, that offered shelter for the night.
Before the door, were three tall poplar trees, which made it very dark within;
and the wind moaned through them with a dismal wail. He COULD NOT walk on, till
daylight came again; and here he stretched himself close to the wall--to undergo
new torture.
For now, a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible than that
from which he had escaped. Those widely staring eyes, so lustreless and so
glassy, that he had better borne to see them than think upon them, appeared in
the midst of the darkness: light in themselves, but giving light to nothing.
There were but two, but they were everywhere. If he shut out the sight, there
came the room with every well-known object--some, indeed, that he would have
forgotten, if he had gone over its contents from memory--each in its accustomed
place. The body was in ITS place, and its eyes were as he saw them when he stole
away. He got up, and rushed into the field without. The figure was behind him.
He re-entered the shed, and shrunk down once more. The eyes were there, before
he had laid himself along.
And here he remained in such terror as none but he can know, trembling in
every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every pore, when suddenly there
arose upon the night-wind the noise of distant shouting, and the roar of voices
mingled in alarm and wonder. Any sound of men in that lonely place, even though
it conveyed a real cause of alarm, was something to him. He regained his
strength and energy at the prospect of personal danger; and springing to his
feet, rushed into the open air.
The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and
rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for
miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. The
shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of
Fire! mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and
the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft
as though refreshed by food. The noise increased as he looked. There were people
there--men and women--light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He darted
onward--straight, headlong--dashing through brier and brake, and leaping gate
and fence as madly as his dog, who careered with loud and sounding bark before
him.
He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing to and fro,
some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, others driving
the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others coming laden from the
burning pile, amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling down of
red-hot beams. The apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago,
disclosed a mass of raging fire; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning
well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women
and children shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and
cheers. The clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hissing of the
water as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. He
shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself, plunged
into the thickest of the throng. Hither and thither he dived that night: now
working at the pumps, and now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never
ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and men were thickest. Up and down the
ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with
his weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones, in every part of that
great fire was he; but he bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor
bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again, and only smoke and
blackened ruins remained.
This mad excitement over, there returned, with ten-fold force, the dreadful
consciousness of his crime. He looked suspiciously about him, for the men were
conversing in groups, and he feared to be the subject of their talk. The dog
obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and they drew off, stealthily,
together. He passed near an engine where some men were seated, and they called
to him to share in their refreshment. He took some bread and meat; and as he
drank a draught of beer, heard the firemen, who were from London, talking about
the murder. 'He has gone to Birmingham, they say,' said one: 'but they'll have
him yet, for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow night there'll be a cry all
through the country.'
He hurried off, and walked till he almost dropped upon the ground; then lay
down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and uneasy sleep. He wandered on
again, irresolute and undecided, and oppressed with the fear of another solitary
night.
Suddenly, he took the desperate resolution to going back to London.
'There's somebody to speak to there, at all event,' he thought. 'A good
hiding-place, too. They'll never expect to nab me there, after this country
scent. Why can't I lie by for a week or so, and, forcing blunt from Fagin, get
abroad to France? Damme, I'll risk it.'
He acted upon this impluse without delay, and choosing the least frequented
roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed within a short distance
of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk by a circuitous route, to proceed
straight to that part of it which he had fixed on for his destination.
The dog, though. If any description of him were out, it would not be
forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone with him. This might
lead to his apprehension as he passed along the streets. He resolved to drown
him, and walked on, looking about for a pond: picking up a heavy stone and tying
it to his handerkerchief as he went.
The animal looked up into his master's face while these preparations were
making; whether his instinct apprehended something of their purpose, or the
robber's sidelong look at him was sterner than ordinary, he skulked a little
farther in the rear than usual, and cowered as he came more slowly along. When
his master halted at the brink of a pool, and looked round to call him, he
stopped outright.
'Do you hear me call? Come here!' cried Sikes.
The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped to
attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and started back.
'Come back!' said the robber.
The dog wagged his tail, but moved not. Sikes made a running noose and called
him again.
The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away
at his hardest speed.
The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the expectation
that he would return. But no dog appeared, and at length he resumed his journey.
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