The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
"All's right," said Lupin, as he shook himself. "And now, my new friend,
I will borrow the same file with which you released yourself from your
fetters, and git rid of mine."
"Here it is," said Todd; "you work upon one leg, and I will work upon
the other, for I have two files here, although one of them is a little
blunted by the work it has already done. Yet it will help, and time is
everything."
"It is," said Lupin. "Work away, for I am not able to think of anything
until I am free of these confounded irons."
They worked in real earnest, and to such purpose, that in a much less
space of time than anybody would have thought it possible to accomplish
the process in, the fetters of Mr. Lupin dropped from him, and, like
Todd, he stood so far free from restraint.
"Now," he said, "I have some first-rate picklocks, and if
providence--Tush! tush! I mean if we are lucky, we shall get on
capitally. The next thing we have to do is, to get out of here, and by
far the shortest way is to work through the wall. Have you any other
tools beside the files, for they are not much use now to us?"
"Yes, a chisel."
"A chisel? Oh, my friend, you are indeed a wonderful man. A chisel? What
may not be done with a chisel! A strong, good chisel, too. Oh, if we do
not chisel our way out of Newgate now, it will be very hard indeed.
Come, you shall see an old hand at work. Perhaps you have not had much
experience at prison-breaking?"
"Certainly not," said Todd.
"Well, this will be a good lesson to you. Now you will see how nicely I
will get one of these old square blocks of stone out of its place."
Todd smiled grimly. Perhaps he thought he could have given the Reverend
Josiah Lupin a good lesson in some things; but at that time he was only
too happy to meet with a companion who promised such great things in the
way of immediate escape.
Certainly Mr. Lupin showed great dexterity in handling the chisel, with
which he had been furnished by Todd; and in a much less space of time
than any one would have thought the work could have been performed in,
he had loosened the stone in the wall that he wished to dislodge.
"Let us both push it," he said, "and we shall get it through easily."
"But its fall will make an alarm," said Todd.
"Oh, no. The distance is too short, and it will go down easy. Now for
it."
They pressed upon the stone both of them, and by a skilful joggling
movement, Lupin got it to move along until it was beyond its centre of
gravity, and then, with a heavy bump, down it went on the other side.
They both now paused for some moments, and spoke not a word, for they
were anxious to discover if the fall of the stone into the passage
beyond the cells had made any noise sufficient to attract the attention
of the prison officials.
All was still.
"It's as right as possible," said Lupin. "They are asleep, the greater
part of them. The pretended vigilance in this place, and the sleepless
watchfulness, is all a fudge. Turnkeys, and police officers, and
Governors of Newgate, are but flesh and blood, and they will take things
easy if they can."
"You are quite a man of the world," said Todd.
"Oh, yes; I have seen a little of it. But I say, Master Todd, deal
candidly with me now. Have you not some secret hoard of cash, upon which
we can make ourselves comfortable, when we get out of this mousetrap? I
have not a penny piece; but you ought to have something, I should say. I
don't mean to say but that I had money, but it was not hidden, and the
police have got hold of that. If I were acquitted, they kindly said they
would let me have it. But if found guilty, of which they did not
entertain the smallest doubt, I could not want it."
"Curses on them!" said Todd; "they had enough of mine to have made us
both rich men--very rich men. Oh, that I had been off a month ago!"
"Don't fret about that. We are all in the hands of a gracious
provi--Psha! I am forgetting again. Whatever you do, Todd, in this
world, don't turn parson to a parcel of old women, for the phraseology
will stick to you as long as you live, if you do. But come--tell me now.
You do know where to lay your hand upon money?"
Todd thought that it would be very indiscreet to say no to this little
proposition, so with a nod and a smile he replied--
"Only a few hundreds. That's all."
"A few hundreds? That is a pretty good all, and will do very well
indeed, my dear friend. Is it an understanding that we go halves?"
"Quite, quite."
"Then, if we don't get out of the stone-jug pretty soon, it will be a
strange thing to me. Now let us work away like bricks, and we will show
them that two determined men can laugh at their bolts, and bars, and
stone walls."
"How confident you are," said Todd. "You surely forget that we must go
through much, before we can see the outside of the walls of this
dreadful place. I wish I could be as sure of the result as you are, or
as you seem to be."
"It is one-half the battle to make sure; there goes another of the
stones. Now follow me through this opening in the wall. It leads to a
passage from which we can reach one of the smaller inner courts; and
from that we shall get on through the chapel to the Governor's house,
and if we can't get out there, it's a bad case."
Mr. Lupin, who had, in a great measure, now that he no longer had any
sanctified character to keep up, thrown of his timid nature, ventured to
scramble through the opening in the wall, and he assisted Todd to follow
him.
They both now stood in a narrow vaulted passage, and then they paused
again for several minutes to listen if any noise in the prison gave
intimation that any one was stirring; but everything was perfectly
still, and so death-like was the silence, that, but that they well knew
to the contrary, they might have supposed that they were the only living
persons within that gloomy pile of building.
The little bit of wax candle that had been brought to Lupin by the pious
lady, and which he had lit in his own cell, for the purpose, at first,
of having a good look at Todd, was now upon the point of going out; but
he was very well provided with wax candle-ends, and he speedily lighted
another, as he said in a tone of irony--
"The sheriffs will write a letter of threats to the pious lady, when
they find how much she aided us in escaping."
"They ought," said Todd. "We will pray for her."
Lupin laughed, as he with a light step now crept along the vaulted
passage, and reached a massive door at the end of it, up and down which
he passed the light several times. Then he muttered to himself--
"Good! Only the lock, and it will need to be a good one if it resist me.
I used to be rather an adept at this sort of thing."
"Then you are," said Todd, "a professional--"
He paused, for he did not like to say thief; but Lupin himself added the
word, cracksman, and Todd nodded.
"Yes," added Lupin, "I was a cracksman, but I got known, so I thought
the chapel dodge would suit me, and it did for a time, and would for
some time longer, but that the little accident of which you have heard
something took place in the chapel, and that idiot Mrs. Oakley found me
out. Ah! you never after all can be a match for a crafty old woman. They
will have you at some moment when you least expect it. She regularly
sold me."
CHAPTER CXXXIV.
THE ESCAPE, AND THE RETREAT IN CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD.
While Mr. Lupin talked, he did not lose time, but he was working away at
the lock of the door at the end of the passage. After a few moments
there was a crackling sound, and then the lock yielded to the exertion
of Mr. Lupin, and went back into its home. The door, with a wheezing
sound, slowly opened.
"All's right," whispered Lupin. "The less we say now, Todd, the better,
for our voices will go farther now that we shall be clear of this
passage. Come on. Follow me!"
They both emerged into the night air; and crouching down, Lupin ran
along the little yard in which they were, and which was not above
half-a-dozen yards across. He paused at a door, and then suddenly
starting away from it, he muttered--
"It is not this one. Ah! this is it! Stand quite close up against the
wall, and then there will be the less chance of any one seeing you. I
must work away at this door."
"Where does it lead to?" whispered Todd.
"To the chapel."
Todd screwed himself up into the smallest space that he possibly could
against the wall, close to the door, while Lupin tried to open it. That
door for more than ten minutes baffled him. Probably that fact was owing
in some degree to the circumstance of his being in the dark, for of
course, before emerging from the vaulted passage, he had thought it
prudent to extinguish the little light he had.
"It baffles you," said Todd, in a voice of great anxiety.
"As yet, yes. No. It is open."
Todd breathed more freely.
"Come in," said Lupin. "Come in. We have done wonders as yet, my friend,
and we will do wonders yet, I think, if Providence only looks with a
gracious--There I go again. When shall I forget that chapel, I wonder?"
"It don't matter," said Todd. "I used to find a little religion answer
very well myself."
"Not a doubt of it. Now, then, that the door is fast, we may muster up a
light again."
With the aid of one of his matches, Lupin again illuminated the little
wax end of the candle, and then Todd found that he was in a small kind
of vestibule from which a green baize door led directly into the chapel.
In fact, that was the entrance by which the lower class of offenders
confined in Newgate were brought to the chapel on Sundays. The little
building looked much larger by the faint light of that one candle than
it really was, and Todd glared around him with a feeling of terror, as
he had not felt since he had left his cell. Perhaps, after all, a good
deal of that was owing to the low temperature of the chapel, that lent a
chill to his system.
"Look at that seat," said Lupin, pointing to one. "Do you know what it
is?"
"Only a seat," said Todd. "Is there anything particular in it?"
"Nothing, except the kind of interest it might have for you, as being
the one upon which the condemned prisoners sit, on the Sunday previous
to their execution, that is all."
Todd turned aside with a shudder.
"Enough," he said. "Enough. That is enough. Let us get on, and not waste
time in idle talking about such idle matters as these. I do not feel
very well."
"And I," said Lupin, "would give a few bright pieces out of those
hundreds that you have hidden, for a glass of brandy. But that's not to
be thought of now. This is a door that leads from the chapel to the
Governor's house, through which the parson, and the Governor and
Sheriffs come on the occasion of Sunday service here. It is by that we
must attempt an escape in this place."
Sweeney Todd, and Mr. Lupin looked like two spectres, as they crept
noiselessly through the chapel of Newgate; but Lupin appeared to know
perfectly well the route which it was necessary for him to take, and he
soon went up three small steps, and applied his ear to the panel of a
door to listen, as he said--
"Through here lies our route."
"Is all still?" said Todd.
"Quite. I don't believe, except ourselves, there is any one up and about
in Newgate except a couple of lazy fellows in the vestibule; but we are
too far off them to be in any danger of their overhearing us. This door
will not give any trouble. Ah!"
"What is the matter?"
"It is bolted on the other side."
"Then we are foiled?"
"Not at all. It will take us a little time to unbolt it, that's all.
Hand me the chisel."