CHAPTER XLVIII

THE FLIGHT OF SIKES

Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been
committed within 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, no 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
neighbouring 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, strops, 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, cambric, 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 impulse 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
handkerchief 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.