Mad Part 41

The main sewers were not made in those days, and the quiet man stopped for an instant to give some instructions to one of his constables, the result being that he leaped into a hansom cab, and very soon after, as the tide was up, a Thames-police row-galley was being pulled slowly backwards and forwards in front of the mouths of two large openings which lent their black, affluent streams to the great river.

On through the darkness went Jarker, always with the stream, his hands outstretched in front, and his head turned from time to time to catch a glimpse of the flash of some bull's-eye lantern. On he pressed, but not unpursued; since for some distance a couple of policemen, the one in plain clothes and he who had been knocked down and made vicious by the blow, came plas.h.i.+ng along.

Once the ruffian stopped, drew out a heavy life-preserver, and with an oath turned back, but directly after he was pressing on again, carefully feeling his way by the slimy wall, for the water grew deeper and deeper, and more than once his quick ear detected the light scuffling noise as of some little animal running, and a plash as of something leaping into the murky stream.

At last Jarker stopped, for the long-continued silence and the thick darkness taught him that he was unpursued; but he knew well enough that though the pursuit had perhaps ceased, the entrances to the sewers would be carefully watched; and he felt too now that there would be no home for him again in Bennett's-rents.

"They're gallus clever!" growled the ruffian when, after pressing on a little further, he once more stopped short--"they're gallus clever, them p'lice, but they don't know everythink."

And now, after listening long and carefully, he turned off short round to the right, and waded onward for a few minutes, when he stopped again to draw forth a box and light a match; but he found that they were wetted, and nothing followed but faint streaks of phosph.o.r.escent light; when with a curse he threw the useless splints away and pressed on.

Dark, plas.h.i.+ng, echoing paths, with noisome mephitic smells and the sound of hurrying waters--paths that might in ignorance be traversed for days and days, until the weary wanderer sank down for the black stream to bear him out to the great river. Here there would be a smaller sewer off to the right, here one to the left; while drain-pipe and culvert emptied their filthy streams, augmenting always the larger sewer where the ruffian waded; as the current swelled and rose and rolled swiftly on, at times with almost sufficient force to render his footing insecure.

At one time the water was up to his breast, but it soon shallowed when he entered a branch and faced the stream, guiding himself ever with his hand upon the slimy wall, as if thoroughly acquainted with his road, and proceeding the while at no mean rate along the gloomy way; for Jarker had been here before, and he pressed on fearless of darkness or rats, thinking that the only danger that could a.s.sail him would be a rush of water after a heavy rain. At times, though, he stopped splas.h.i.+ng and beating the stream, and imitating the snapping, snarling bark of a dog, for something would run scratching over him--then another, and another-- keen, hunger-bitten little animals; then there followed splash after splash, as they leaped into the water. Now he was clear of them again, and stopped puzzled, feeling along the wall on both sides for something he could not find--some guide-mark or open sewer-mouth; but now again came the little eager animals, hunger-driven and fierce, crowding and swimming round him, swarming up his back and breast, and biting sharply with their little keen teeth as the wretch leaped and bounded about, tearing half-a-dozen off to make room for a score.

"If I only had one of their gallus lights!" shrieked the ruffian, forgetful of the risk of being heard, and of the _ruse_ he had before successfully practised, and in the horror of his position ready even to have given himself up as he cursed and yelled in a frightful manner--the hideous noises echoing along the vaulted sewer, and sounding doubly frightful.

"Curse 'em! I shall be gnawed to death!" shrieked Jarker, as he could not help recalling the times when he had gloated with delight over the performances of some steel-teethed terrier in a pit amidst a dozen rats; and now, as he fought there, splas.h.i.+ng about in the water, and tearing off rat after rat to crush them in his powerful hands, he could not but feel how the tables were turned, and groaned piteously as a great dread came upon him--a horror blacker than the black darkness around. But Jarker fought on savagely for his life, while the diminutive size of his adversaries formed their protection again and again. He had his life-preserver out now, and struck with it at random, fierce and heavy blows, each of which would have beaten the life out of a dozen rats, but only once or twice had they any effect, and then he struck the brick side of the sewer, when the lead k.n.o.b was loosened and fell from the whalebone handle into the rus.h.i.+ng water, and with a curse Jarker dashed the useless fragment away.

Faint and hara.s.sed, his great brute strength of no avail, his hands and face streaming with blood, Jarker now made a fierce rush up stream; but his progress was slow with the water so deep; when, as if fearing to lose their prey, the rats redoubled their efforts and leaped upon him furiously, till, half-mad with the horror of their fearful a.s.sault, one he had never known before in his many sewer wanderings through having been provided with a light, Jarker drew in a long breath, exhaled it again, thoroughly inflated his lungs as he beat off his a.s.sailants, and then plunged beneath the water, groping his way slowly up stream, and keeping under the foul water for nearly a minute, when he raised his head for breath, and plunged under again and again.

His plan succeeded; for, evidently at a loss, the tribe of rats had gone down with the stream; and then he was alone and afraid to stir, lest he should bring them back, as he stood panting and dripping with the noisome water, and leaned against the slippery wall.

"I did say as I'd keep a dawg," growled Jarker at last; "and if I'd ha'

had one--" And then he burst out into a hideous string of oaths and curses at what he called his ill luck, as, after listening for some time, he resumed his way in the echoing subterranean labyrinth, trembling lest the rats should have heard his voice.

But he did not go far before he stopped as if puzzled, and stood thinking, and listening to the rush of the stream and the trickling of drain after drain as it emptied itself into the main current, itself but a tributary of a greater. He dared not retrace his steps on account of the rats, but went slowly on; stopped, went on again; stopped once more to scratch his dripping head; and then he gave a leap and a cry of terror as he felt an enemy swim up once more and try to effect a lodgment. Then he hurried forward through the dense black darkness, then back a little way in a strange, excited way, tearing and splas.h.i.+ng about furiously as a new horror a.s.sailed him; and at last muttering low blasphemies, muttering them in a low whisper lest they should be heard by the rats, he made another push on for many yards, cursing the police, the rats, and his ill luck. Once he stumbled and fell with a heavy splash, to be swept along over and over by the stream before he recovered his footing to stand half-drowned and clinging to the bricks, giving vent now to a whimpering, sobbing howl, that seemed as if it had come from a dog; for, with his courage gone and his head in a whirl, he stood now in the intense darkness afraid to move, as his imagination peopled the sewers around him with horrors at the very thought of which he shuddered; for in spite of scores of rambles in these subterranean channels, with whose many turns he had considered himself perfectly familiar, Bill Jarker had lost his way.

The police turned back after pursuing Jarker for a short distance along the sewer; but though not disposed to follow him along the dark subway, they had not given him up, for the outlets were carefully watched both by the places where repairs were going on and also at the mouths in the Thames' bank; while, after proper arrangements had been made, the sewers were searched that night with lanterns; the princ.i.p.al man engaged more than once announcing in a very loud voice, which went echoing along the arched ways, that he (Jarker) might just as well give up as be starved out; but for all that, Mr Jarker was not found.

"Not much use hunting along here," muttered one man to another; "here's a hundred places where he could hide till we got by."

"Remember that poor chap we found just here, Joe?" said one man, evidently quite at home in the place--a rough fellow in a Guernsey s.h.i.+rt and high boots, and wearing a hair-mask.

"Ah," said another, "well."

"What was that?" said the quiet man, who was also here.

"Chap we found all along here," said the other, "and brought him out in a basket."

"Basket?" said the quiet man.

"Ah!" said the other; "bones lying all along here; trod on 'em as you went--picked clean."

"Pooh, nonsense!" said the quiet man, who had not shuddered before for at least ten years.

"Right enough," said the other sulkily; "rats!"

"Here, let's get out," said the quiet man, "we are doing no good;" and he made the light of his bull's-eye lantern play along the surface of the water to where he could just see a little head above the stream as its owner swam rapidly away, leaving an ever-widening track behind.

"Let's get out; it's no use to go splas.h.i.+ng along here; if he isn't drowned, all we can do is to wait for him."

"He ain't drowned," said a policeman, thrusting his lantern up a drain and peering in; "he's too much of a rat hisself, and I wouldn't mind laying that he's worked his way up to light before now." And the man stopped, gazing up the black noisome channel before him as if it possessed some attraction.

"Gone up there, safe," said the quiet man, laughing. "Go up, Tom, and see; I'll wait for you."

"Officers allus goes fust to lead the way, and privates follers," said the policeman. "Nice place, though, ain't it?"

"Whereabouts are we now?" said the quiet man.

"Don't zackly know," said the man in the hair-mask. "Not far from Holborn, I should say."

"Going up there, Tom?" said the quiet man, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the top of a small dram-flask.

"Arter you, sir," said the policeman.

The quiet man took the "arter you" to apply to the dram-flask, which he pa.s.sed to his follower; and as no one seemed disposed to crawl on hands and knees along the narrow place, the party slowly retraced their steps to where they had descended, and it was with a feeling of relief that they found themselves once more in the clear night air.

Volume Three, Chapter XII.

WHAT MA MERE KNEW.

"You mad fool, Jean! you shall listen, and you shall hear all," cried _ma mere_ furiously; "and I will torment you till you see that you are _bete_. The little worker--the pink doll--is not for you; and you shall not have her. But it was good sport, Jean--rare sport, Jean. That sniff woman, poor fool! told me. He carried her down the stairs-- carried her down in his arms, of course, for he loves her; and let him marry her if he will; who cares? for she is not for you. Do you hear, _bete_? he carried her lovingly down in his arms."

Jean winced as he sat in his old place at the window, but pretended not to hear, though from the working of his nostrils it was plain how eagerly he drank in every word.

"No, Jean, she is not for you," cried the old woman. "I hate her, and you shall not love her, but someone else; for she has always set you against me. I know--I know all--all--all!" she exclaimed, muttering and nodding her head; "he struck down the Jarker--big wretch; and then the Jarker waited hour after hour, hour after hour, into the dark night, and watched for him till he was talking to the painted woman, and struck him down too; and then I saw more too, and I was not going to tell--O no-- though I think he killed her. But no, no, Jean, I would not tell, for I have my plans; and pah! there are plenty more painted women. But no, no, Jean, you shall not have the pink doll. You must love me, Jean, till I tell you to marry."

The young man writhed in his chair, but he spoke no word; while his mother knitted furiously, clicking her needles and smiling maliciously as she watched him sideways.

"No, no, Jean, you shall not have the pink doll; and you cannot see her now--they are gone."

"But she will come," cried Jean angrily, with something of his mother's spirit bursting forth.

"No, no!" half-shrieked his mother; "she shall not--I will not have her.

But no, she will not come, you _bete_, for the preacher is ill with the Jarker's blow, and she nurses him and smoothes his pillow. Fool!" she cried in a sharp, cracked voice, "I will torment you to death if you tear not the hateful little thing from your foolish heart. You shall only love me till I tell you. But now listen: it is dark now, and I have my plans. The Jarker is away, and the police hunt him. Now listen, fool, while I tell you. They may take him, but I hope not yet; for you shall be rich, Jean--you shall have money and all that the great people have, and plenty of fine dolls shall be proud to have you, Jean; for I am proud of you; and what was she? Bah! nothing. I know the Jarker's secret--I know it two years; but he does not think it, for I have been still and waited two years, Jean--more. He suspect me once, but he dare not touch me, and I have given him no chance since. And should I tell till it was time? No, no!"

_Ma mere_ leaned over towards her son, and casting down her knitting in her eagerness, one of the dogs ran to pick it up, but she struck the poor thing angrily with Jean's crutch, and it ran yelping back to its corner. And now she whispered long and eagerly in the young man's ear, till his cheek flushed and eyes sparkled, for he was coupling all he heard with the name of Lucy Grey.

"Gold and silver--much silver and rich things, Jean," hissed _ma mere_.

"But have you seen them?" cried Jean eagerly.

"Bah! no; but what then? Why was he out night after night? To catch birds? Bah! no, but to pluck birds of their fine feathers, gay feathers, rich feathers, and he has a store, I know it."

"But he may come back," said Jean huskily.