THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE
Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at 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 the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the
many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the
great mass of its inhabitants.
To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of close,
narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the rougest and poorest of waterside
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 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 waggons 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 has 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 dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign of desolation and
neglect.
In such a neighborhood, beyond Dockhead in the Borough of Southwark, stands
Jacob's Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep and fifteen
or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill Pond, but known in the days
of this story as Folly Ditch. It is a creek or inlet from the Thames, and can
always be filled at high water by opening the sluices at the Lead Mills from
which it took its old name. At such times, a stranger, looking from one of the
wooden bridges thrown across it at Mill Lane, will see the inhabitants of the
houses on either side lowering from their back doors and windows, buckets,
pails, domestic utensils of all kinds, in which to haul the water up; and when
his eye is turned from these operations to the houses themselves, his utmost
astonishment will be excited by the scene before him. Crazy wooden galleries
common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon
the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which
to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined,
that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they
shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and threatening
to fall into it--as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying
foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of
filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch.
In Jacob's Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are
crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling into the
streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke. Thirty or forty
years ago, before losses and chancery suits came upon it, it was a thriving
place; but now it is a desolate island indeed. The houses have no owners; they
are broken open, and entered upon by those who have the courage; and there they
live, and there they die. They must have powerful motives for a secret
residence, or be reduced to a destitute condition indeed, who seek a refuge in
Jacob's Island.
In an upper room of one of these houses--a detached house of fair size,
ruinous in other respects, but strongly defended at door and window: of which
house the back commanded the ditch in manner already described--there were
assembled three men, who, regarding each other every now and then with looks
expressive of perplexity and expectation, sat for some time in profound and
gloomy silence. One of these was Toby Crackit, another Mr. Chitling, and the
third a robber of fifty years, whose nose had been almost beaten in, in some old
scuffle, and whose face bore a frightful scar which might probably be traced to
the same occasion. This man was a returned transport, and his name was Kags.
'I wish,' said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, 'that you had picked out some
other crig when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come here, my fine
feller.'
'Why didn't you, blunder-head!' said Kags.
'Well, I thought you'd have been a little more glad to see me than this,'
replied Mr. Chitling, with a melancholy air.
'Why, look'e, young gentleman,' said Toby, 'when a man keeps himself so very
ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over his head with
nobody a prying and smelling about it, it's rather a startling thing to have the
honour of a wisit from a young gentleman (however respectable and pleasant a
person he may be to play cards with at conweniency) circumstanced as you are.'
'Especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping with him,
that's arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts, and is too modest to
want to be presented to the Judges on his return,' added Mr. Kags.
There was a short silence, after which Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon as
hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care swagger, turned
to Chitling and said,
'When was Fagin took then?'
'Just at dinner-time--two o'clock this afternoon. Charley and I made our
lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty water-butt, head
downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out at the top,
and so they took him too.'
'And Bet?'
'Poor Bet! She went to see the Body, to speak to who it was,' replied
Chitling, his countenance falling more and more, 'and went off mad, screaming
and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they put a strait-weskut
on her and took her to the hospital--and there she is.'
'Wot's come of young Bates?' demanded Kags.
'He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he'll be here soon,'
replied Chitling. 'There's nowhere else to go to now, for the people at the
Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken--I went up there and see it
with my own eyes--is filled with traps.'
'This is a smash,' observed Toby, biting his lips. 'There's more than one
will go with this.'
'The sessions are on,' said Kags: 'if they get the inquest over, and Bolter
turns King's evidence: as of course he will, from what he's said already: they
can prove Fagin an accessory before the fact, and get the trial on on Friday,
and he'll swing in six days from this, by G--!'
'You should have heard the people groan,' said Chitling; 'the officers fought
like devils, or they'd have torn him away. He was down once, but they made a
ring round him, and fought their way along. You should have seen how he looked
about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to them as if they were his dearest
friends. I can see 'em now, not able to stand upright with the pressing of the
mob, and draggin him along amongst 'em; I can see the people jumping up, one
behind another, and snarling with their teeth and making at him; I can see the
blood upon his hair and beard, and hear the cries with which the women worked
themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore they'd
tear his heart out!'
The horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his ears,
and with his eyes closed got up and paced violently to and fro, like one
distracted.
While he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their eyes
fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs, and Sikes's
dog bounded into the room. They ran to the window, downstairs, and into the
street. The dog had jumped in at an open window; he made no attempt to follow
them, nor was his master to be seen.
'What's the meaning of this?' said Toby when they had returned. 'He can't be
coming here. I--I--hope not.'
'If he was coming here, he'd have come with the dog,' said Kags, stooping
down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor. 'Here! Give us some
water for him; he has run himself faint.'
'He's drunk it all up, every drop,' said Chitling after watching the dog some
time in silence. 'Covered with mud--lame--half blind--he must have come a long
way.'
'Where can he have come from!' exclaimed Toby. 'He's been to the other kens
of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here, where he's been
many a time and often. But where can he have come from first, and how comes he
here alone without the other!'
'He'--(none of them called the murderer by his old name)--'He can't have made
away with himself. What do you think?' said Chitling.
Toby shook his head.
'If he had,' said Kags, 'the dog 'ud want to lead us away to where he did it.
No. I think he's got out of the country, and left the dog behind. He must have
given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn't be so easy.'
This solution, appearing the most probable one, was adopted as the right; the
dog, creeping under a chair, coiled himself up to sleep, without more notice
from anybody.
It being now dark, the shutter was closed, and a candle lighted and placed
upon the table. The terrible events of the last two days had made a deep
impression on all three, increased by the danger and uncertainty of their own
position. They drew their chairs closer together, starting at every sound. They
spoke little, and that in whispers, and were as silent and awe-stricken as if
the remains of the murdered woman lay in the next room.
They had sat thus, some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried knocking at
the door below.
'Young Bates,' said Kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he felt
himself.
The knocking came again. No, it wasn't he. He never knocked like that.
Crackit went to the window, and shaking all over, drew in his head. There was
no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough. The dog too was on
the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door.
'We must let him in,' he said, taking up the candle.
'Isn't there any help for it?' asked the other man in a hoarse voice.
'None. He MUST come in.'
'Don't leave us in the dark,' said Kags, taking down a candle from the
chimney-piece, and lighting it, with such a trembling hand that the knocking was
twice repeated before he had finished.
Crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the lower
part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his head under
his hat. He drew them slowly off. Blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks,
beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short thick breath; it was the very
ghost of Sikes.
He laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room, but
shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance over his
shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall--as close as it would go--and ground
it against it--and sat down.
Not a word had been exchanged. He looked from one to another in silence. If
an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly averted. When his
hollow voice broke silence, they all three started. They seemed never to have
heard its tones before.
'How came that dog here?' he asked.
'Alone. Three hours ago.'
'To-night's paper says that Fagin's took. Is it true, or a lie?'
'True.'
They were silent again.
'Damn you all!' said Sikes, passing his hand across his forehead.
'Have you nothing to say to me?'
There was an uneasy movement among them, but nobody spoke.
'You that keep this house,' said Sikes, turning his face to Crackit, 'do you
mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?'
'You may stop here, if you think it safe,' returned the person addressed,
after some hesitation.
Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him: rather trying to turn
his head than actually doing it: and said, 'Is--it--the body--is it buried?'
They shook their heads.
'Why isn't it!' he retorted with the same glance behind him. 'Wot do they
keep such ugly things above the ground for?--Who's that knocking?'
Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that there
was nothing to fear; and directly came back with Charley Bates behind him. Sikes
sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy entered the room he
encountered his figure.
'Toby,' said the boy falling back, as Sikes turned his eyes towards him, 'why
didn't you tell me this, downstairs?'
There had been something so tremendous in the shrinking off of the three,
that the wretched man was willing to propitiate even this lad. Accordingly he
nodded, and made as though he would shake hands with him.
'Let me go into some other room,' said the boy, retreating still farther.
'Charley!' said Sikes, stepping forward. 'Don't you--don't you know me?'
'Don't come nearer me,' answered the boy, still retreating, and looking, with
horror in his eyes, upon the murderer's face. 'You monster!'
The man stopped half-way, and they looked at each other; but Sikes's eyes
sunk gradually to the ground.
'Witness you three,' cried the boy shaking his clenched fist, and becoming
more and more excited as he spoke. 'Witness you three--I'm not afraid of him--if
they come here after him, I'll give him up; I will. I tell you out at once. He
may kill me for it if he likes, or if he dares, but if I am here I'll give him
up. I'd give him up if he was to be boiled alive. Murder! Help! If there's the
pluck of a man among you three, you'll help me. Murder! Help! Down with him!'
Pouring out these cries, and accompanying them with violent gesticulation,
the boy actually threw himself, single-handed, upon the strong man, and in the
intensity of his energy and the suddenness of his surprise, brought him heavily
to the ground.
The three spectators seemed quite stupefied. They offered no interference,
and the boy and man rolled on the ground together; the former, heedless of the
blows that showered upon him, wrenching his hands tighter and tighter in the
garments about the murderer's breast, and never ceasing to call for help with
all his might.
The contest, however, was too unequal to last long. Sikes had him down, and
his knee was on his throat, when Crackit pulled him back with a look of alarm,
and pointed to the window. There were lights gleaming below, voices in loud and
earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps--endless they seemed in
number--crossing the nearest wooden bridge. One man on horseback seemed to be
among the crowd; for there was the noise of hoofs rattling on the uneven
pavement. The gleam of lights increased; the footsteps came more thickly and
noisily on. Then, came a loud knocking at the door, and then a hoarse murmur
from such a multitude of angry voices as would have made the boldest quail.
'Help!' shrieked the boy in a voice that rent the air.
'He's here! Break down the door!'
'In the King's name,' cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry arose
again, but louder.
'Break down the door!' screamed the 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 huzzah 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 screeching 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 downstairs door fast?'
'Double-locked and chained,' replied Crackit, who, with the other two men,
still remained quite helpless and bewildered.
'The panels--are they strong?'
'Lined with sheet-iron.'
'And the windows too?'
'Yes, and the windows.'
'Damn you!' cried the desperate ruffian, 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 the infuriated throng. Some shouted to those who were nearest to set
the house on fire; others roared to the officers 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 hundreds echoed it. Some called for
ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to and fro as if to seek
them, and still came back and roared again; some spent their breath in impotent
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 as I came up. Give me a rope, a long rope.
They're all in front. I may drop into the Folly Ditch, and clear off that way.
Give me a rope, or I shall do three more murders and kill myself.
The panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the
murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up to the
house-top.
All the window in the rear of the house had been long ago bricked up, except
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 an unbroken stream.
He planted a board, which he had carried 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 instant they perceived it and knew it was
defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to which all their previous
shouting had been whispers. Again and again it rose. Those who were at too great
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 pressed the people from the front--on, on, on, in a strong struggling
current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten 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; 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. Still the
current poured on to find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and
only for an instant see the wretch.
'They have him now,' cried a man on the nearest bridge. 'Hurrah!'
The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose.
'I will give fifty pounds,' cried an old gentleman from the same quarter, 'to
the man who takes him alive. I will remain here, till he come to ask me for it.'
There was another roar. At this moment the word was passed among the crowd
that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first called for the
ladder had mounted into the room. The stream abruptly turned, as this
intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows, seeing
those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and running into
the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pell-mell to the spot they
had left: each man crushing and striving with his neighbor, and all panting with
impatience to get near the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers
brought him out. The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to
suffocation, or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were
dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, between
the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing
struggles of others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate
attention was distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for
his capture was, if possible, increased.
The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd, and
the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity
than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, determined to make one last
effort for his life by dropping into the ditch, and, at the risk of being
stifled, endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and confusion.
Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within the
house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he set his foot
against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the rope tightly and firmly
round it, and with the other made a strong running noose by the aid of his hands
and teeth almost in a second. He could let himself down by the cord to within a
less distance of the ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his
hand to cut it then and drop.
At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to
slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman before-mentioned
(who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge as to resist the force of
the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly warned those about him that the
man was about to lower himself down--at that very instant the murderer, looking
behind him on the roof, threw his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of
terror.
'The eyes again!' he cried in an unearthly screech.
Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled over
the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight, tight as a
bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds. He fell for five-and-thirty feet.
There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung,
with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand.
The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The murderer
swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body
which obscured his view, called to the people to come and take him out, for
God's sake.
A dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on the
parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring, jumped for the
dead man's shoulders. Missing his aim, he fell into the ditch, turning
completely over as he went; and striking his head against a stone, dashed out
his brains.
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