The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
confounded was he by this accident, that for a few moments he felt
disposed to lie there and give up all further contest with that fate
that never seemed weary of now persecuting him after the long course of
successful iniquity he had been permitted to carry on.
He heard the loud cries of the man, and he knew that even at such an
early hour how those cries would soon rouse sufficient assistance to be
his destruction. He yet did not like to die without a struggle. Newgate,
with its lonely cells, came up before his mind's eye, and then he
pictured to himself the gibbet; and with a positive yell, partly of rage
and partly of fear, he rose to his feet.
"What shall I do?" he said. "Dare I rush out now into Fleet Street, and
by taking the other direction to that in which this man has gone, try to
find safety?"
A moment's thought convinced him of the great danger of that plan, and
he gave it up. There remained then nothing but the mode of retreat
through the church; and no longer hesitating, he took the light in his
hand and dashed open the little door that communicated with the narrow
stairs that would take him underneath the shop.
Before descending them he paused to listen, and he heard the cries and
shouts of men afar off. He found that his foes were mustering in strong
force to attack him; and clenching his double fist, he swore the most
horrible oaths. This was a process that seemed to have some effect upon
the spirits of Todd. The swearing acted as a kind of safety valve to his
passion.
He descended the staircase, and when he reached the foot of it he paused
again. The noise in the street was not so acute. It had sobered down to
a confused murmur, and he felt that his danger was upon the increase.
Shading the light with one hand, for there was a current of air blowing
in the cellars and secret passages, he looked like some fiend or vampire
seeking for some victim among the dead.
"They come," he said. "They come. They think they have me at last. They
come to drag me to death. Oh that I had but the power of heaping
destruction upon them all, of submitting them all to some wretched and
lingering death, I would do it! Curses on them--how I should revel in
their misery and pain."
He went on a few paces past the dead bodies of the two men, and then he
paused again, for he could distinctly hear the trampling of feet upon
the pavement near to the house; and then, before he could utter a word,
there come such a thundering appeal to the knocker of the outer door,
that he dropped his candle, and it was immediately extinguished in the
start that he gave.
It was quite evident that his foes were now in earnest, and they were
determined he should not escape them by any fault of theirs, for the
knocking was continued with a vehemence enough to beat in the door; but
so long as it did continue, it was a kind of signal that his enemies
were upon the outside.
"I may escape them yet," he said, tremblingly. "Oh, yes, who shall take
upon them to say that I may not escape them yet? I can find my way in
the dark well--quite well. I am sufficiently familiar with this place to
do so."
That was true enough; but yet, although Todd was, as he said,
sufficiently familiar with the place to find his way through it in the
dark, he could not make such good progress as when he had a lamp or a
candle to guide him.
He heard a loud crash above.
"They have broken open the door," he said, "but yet I am safe, for I
have a wonderful start of them. I am safe yet, and I am well armed, too.
I hold the lives of several in my hands. They will not be so fond, from
their love of me, to throw away their lives. Ha! I shall beat them
yet--I shall beat them yet."
With his hands outstretched before him, so that he should not run
against any obstacle, he took his way through the gloomy passages that
led to the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's church. The distance was not
great, but his danger was; and yet such was his insatiable desire to
know what was going on in his house, that he paused more than once again
to listen.
From what he heard, he felt convinced that many persons had made their
way into the shop and parlour, and he anticipated a thorough search of
the house.
"Let them," he said, "let them. There is nothing there now that it can
interest me to keep secret--absolutely nothing. Let them search well in
every room. It will give me the more time."
He struggled on in the dark a little further, and then he suddenly
paused. A thought had struck him.
"Oh, what a glorious thing," he said, "if I could only now fire the old
house, and so scorch some of those idiots, who are no doubt running from
room to room full of mad delight at the opportunity to do so, and at the
prospect that they may light upon me, and so share the money among them
that is offered for my blood. It is a tempting thought."
Todd felt in his pocket for the matches that had been supplied to him by
his departed friend, Mr. Lupin, and he found that he had some of them
left, although all the little bits of wax ends of candles were gone.
"A match will do as well as a torch to set fire to a house. I will
chance it, for afterwards I shall most bitterly repent not having done
so. Oh, yes, I will go back and chance it. I know how to do it; and if
that Sir Richard Blunt, whom I yet hope to see in death, has not removed
the materials I placed for the firing of the house, I can do it easily.
Oh, that will be most capital! I think it will make me laugh again!
Ha!--ha! yes, it will make me laugh again!"
He stood for the space of time of about two minutes in deep thought,
with his hands compressed upon his brow; and then he muttered--
"Yes, there is no difficulty. If I can but reach the flooring of that
cupboard beneath the parlour, it will do."
He rapidly made up his mind to attempt this most perilous act of setting
fire to his old house, after all; notwithstanding it was now to his
knowledge filled with his enemies, and that his returning was a matter
of the greatest danger to himself.
He crept back by the way he had gone, and soon reached the cellar again
under his shop. That cellar run partially under the parlour likewise;
and it was upon that circumstance, well known to him, that Todd based
his hopes of being able, with safety to himself, to fire the old house.
He shook a little as he reached the cellar underneath the shop. It was a
natural thing that he should do so; for he knew that he was doing the
very reverse of what impulse would have prompted him to do, namely, fly
from his enemies. The mode of getting into that cellar might, for all he
knew to the contrary, be found out at the most inopportune moment for
him that could be conceived, and he might find himself surrounded almost
at any moment by his foes.
No wonder Todd shook a little.
He quite forgot that the bodies of the two men were there--his two
latest victims; and as he went crawling along with excessive care, the
first thing he did, was to fall over them both, and measure his great
length upon the floor of the cellar. It was quite astonishing how Todd
controlled his temper, when he had any object in view which an
ebullition of rage would have had the effect of jeopardising in any way.
At another time, his oaths upon the occasion of such a fall would have
been rather of the terrific order; but now he uttered not a word, but
gathered himself up again with all the calmness and serenity of an
ancient martyr, who feels that he is suffering for some great and good
cause, dear to the interests of humanity.
Sweeney Todd, however, was very anxious to discover if in his fall he
had made noise enough to alarm those who were above; but he was soon
satisfied that such was not the case, and that the lower part of the
house was quite deserted, while they had made their way to the upper,
intent upon searching in all the rooms for him (Todd). Ah! they little
knew the piece of obdurate cunning that they had pitted against them
there!
"I shall do it!--I shall do it!" muttered Todd, "I shall easily do it.
There is no one to prevent me. Ha!--ha! I do believe that I shall
smother some of them, before they can possibly find the means of getting
down stairs. That would be quite a mercy of providence--oh, quite!"
CHAPTER CL.
TODD SETS FIRE TO HIS HOUSE, AND THEN HIDES IN THE CHURCH.
Immediately beneath the parlour, where a portion of the cellar went,
there was a quantity of old lumber. Perhaps if that lumber had been
looked very carefully over, among it there might have been found some
fragments of old, and some of new coffins from St. Dunstan's; for with
the rich, who had vaults of their own, it was the arrogant fashion to
adorn the last sad and narrow home of humanity with silver plates and
nails; and Todd had despoiled the grave of some of those costly
trappings.
Upon the heap of rubbish he scrambled, and that just enabled him
comfortably to reach the floor of that parlour. That portion of the
floor went under a cupboard in one corner, and in the floor of it three
or four coarse round holes had been drilled with a centre-bit. Todd had
had his own motives for drilling those holes in the cupboard floor.
He now put his finger through one of the holes, and when he did so, he
gave a chuckle of delight, for he was convinced that the contents of
that cupboard had not been in any way interfered with; and that, as a
consequence, he should find no difficulty in firing the house
completely.
"So," he said, "this is the cleverness of your much-vaunted Sir Richard
Blunt. He has left a cupboard as crammed with combustible materials as
it well can be, to the mercy of the first accident that may set fire to
them; and now the accident has come. Ha!"
Again Todd listened attentively, and was still further satisfied that
all was profoundly still in the parlour, although he heard the racket
and the banging of doors in the upper part of the house.
"This is good," said Todd. "This is capital. All is well now. The fire
will have made most excellent progress before they will discover it, and
I will warrant that if once it takes a firm hold of the wood-work of
this old house, it is not a trifle that will stop its roaring progress."
With this, Todd ignited one of his matches and thrust it alight through
one of the holes in the floor of the cupboard.
A slight cracking noise ensued immediately.
"That will do," said Todd, and he withdrew the match and cast it upon
the ground. The crackling noise continued. He turned and fled from the
place with precipitation.
In the lower portion of that cupboard there was a quantity of hay, upon
which oil and turpentine had been poured liberally. High up upon a shelf
was a wooden bowl, with eight pounds of gunpowder in it, and Todd did
not know a moment when the flames might reach it, when a terrific
explosion would be sure to ensue.
"It is done now," he said. "It is done, and they do not know it. More
revenge--more revenge! I shall have more revenge now, and there will be
more death."
He knew that there was only one thing that could by any possibility
prevent the gunpowder in the wooden bowl from becoming speedily ignited,
and that that would be in consequence of the hay being packed too close
to do more than smoulder for a little time before bursting into a flame;
but that it must and would do so eventually, there could be no possible
doubt, and it was in that hearty conviction that Sweeney Todd now most
fully gloried.
And now, as he had done before, he kept his arms outstretched before him
to prevent him from injuring himself against any of the walls or the
abrupt turnings in the passages between his own house and old St.
Dunstan's. He stooped, likewise, in order that he might not strike his