CHAPTER LIV.
The Staircase.—The Old Attic.—A Friend in Need.—Fair Play.—Gray’s Despair.
For several moments now Gray stood in the passage quite incapable of thought or action; his only impulse was by a kind of natural instinct to stand as close to the damp passage wall as he possibly could, to decrease the chances of any one seeing him or touching him in the act of passing.
His brain seemed to be in a complete whirl, and many minutes must have elapsed before he acquired a sufficient calmness to reflect with any degree of rationality upon his present very precarious position.
When he could think, his terrors by no means decreased; for what plausible course of action was there now open to him, as he could not leave the house? The thought then occurred to him, that if he could make his way into the cellars, he might have a chance of lying concealed until the guard at the door was removed, and with this feeling he crept along the passage, with the hope of finding some staircase leading to the lower part of the premises.
He was still engaged in this task when the door of a room leading into the passage suddenly opened, and a flood of light immediately dissipated the pitchy darkness of the place.
Fortunately for him, Gray was within one pace of the bottom of the staircase he had so recently descended; and, with the fear of instant discovery upon his mind, from the person who was coming with the light, he bounded up the staircase, nor paused till he reached the first landing, from whence he had entered the room containing the mother and her child.
There he stopped; but, to his extreme fright, the flashing of the light evidently indicated that its bearer was coming up the stairs. With a stifled groan Gray cautiously ascended the next flight, and again paused on the narrow landing.
Still the light came on, and he could not conceal from himself the fact that the person was still ascending, and that he had no other resource than to continue his flight to the very upper part of the house. The next flight of stairs was steep, narrow, and crazy, so that, tread where he would, they wheezed, creaked, and groaned under the pressure of his feet.
There was, however, no resource, and onward he went, until he was stopped by a door exactly at the top: he pressed it, and it yielded to his touch, allowing him to enter a dark attic.
Further progress Jacob Gray felt there could not be, and he stood in the doorway, listening attentively if he could detect any sounds of approaching feet.
A gush of blood to his heart, and an universal tremor of all his limbs, seized him as he saw the light coming, and felt convinced that the destination of the person approaching was one of the attics, if not the very one he had sought refuge in. All hope appeared to die within him. There was no time for the briefest reflection. With his eyes fixed upon the door, and the pistol in his grasp, he retreated backwards into the room as the footsteps came nearer and nearer to the door.
Then there was a slight pause; after which the door was flung open, and a tall, heavy, coarse-looking man entered the room, carrying in his hand a light.
One glance convinced Jacob Gray that the man was by far his superior in strength—his only chance lay in the loaded pistol he had, and that he was resolved to use should he not be able to bribe the man to connive at his presence, and aid his escape.
It was a moment before the man observed the figure of Jacob Gray with his back to the wall opposite to the door, and the pistol in his grasp. When he did, he by no means betrayed the emotion that might have been expected; but shading the light with his disengaged hand, he cried in a loud voice,—
“Hilloa! Who are you when you are at home?”
“Do you love gold?” said Gray.
“Rather,” replied the man.
“Will it tempt you to assist me to escape from this place? If so, name your price.”
“That’s business like,” said the man. “I suppose it’s you they are making all the rout about below there?”
“It is. They are hunting me, and, with your assistance, I may yet escape.”
“The devil doubt it. Curse me if I don’t actually love you. Why, I have been poking about for this half hour to do you a good turn.”
“Is that possible?”
“To be sure. Why that fellow, whose crown you have cracked so handsomely below there, was the pest of all the cracksmen in the neighbourhood. I love you. I tell you.”
“Then you are—”
“Jem Batter, the cracksman.”
“Then you will befriend me?”
“In course—though hang me if I know you. I thought I knew all the hands on town; but I never clapped eyes on your paste-pot of a mug before.”
Gray replaced his pistol, as he assumed a sickly smile, and said,—
“Then I have really found a friend?”
“A friend! Ah, to be sure you have. I say, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll wait till the enemy is gone, and then I’ll poke you out on the roof, and you can get in at Bill Splasher’s attic. It’s only across a dozen houses or so. He’ll let you out then by the cellars of Somerset House, and you’ll be as safe as any gentleman need wish to be.”
“I thank you,” said Gray. “I am now faint and weary.”
“Sit down then,” cried the man. “Don’t stand upon ceremony here. I suppose you’ve been at some fakement of value—eh?”
“Yes, yes—a robbery,” said Gray, who thought it best to fall in with the humour of his new friend.
“Plenty o’ swag?”
“A trifle, a mere trifle.”
“Never mind, better luck next time,” cried the man dealing Gray an encouraging blow upon the back that nearly took his breath away.
“Thank you,” said Gray.
The thief, for such indeed he was, now proceeded to a cupboard, and handed to Gray therefrom a bottle covered with protective wicker-work, saying,—
“Drink; you’ll find that the best stuff.”
Gray took a hearty draught of the contents, which consisted of exceedingly strong raw spirit.
“Don’t you feel better?” said the man.
“Yes,” replied Gray, “a great deal better.”
“Very good. Now, you see, short reckonings make long friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know the reg’lar terms of business. It’s share and share alike with all who help a lame dog over a stile.”
“I am quite willing,” said Gray, “to award—”
“Oh, bother award,” interrupted the other; “I’m above it. Do you think I’d take anything but my rights of lending a hand to help a poor fellow when the bull dogs are on his track? No, sink me!”
“You are very kind,” said Gray, “but still—”
“Still, nonsense. There’s you, me, and there will be Bill, and Bill’s young woman—that’ll make four of us. Share and share alike’s the plan.”
“Share?”
“Yes—the swag. Come, honour bright, now produce it, will you?”
“Really, I—I—”
“Do you doubt my honour?” cried the ruffian. “If you do, why don’t you say so, you sneak? Take my life, but don’t doubt my honour!”
Gray’s hand mechanically moved towards his breast for his pistol, but before he could reach it the brawny hand of the man was upon his throat, and holding Gray as if he had been an infant in his herculean grasp, he himself took the pistol from him and put it in his own pocket, saying,—
“Thank you, I’ll mind it for you.”
“Let me go,” gasped Gray.
“Then you don’t doubt my honour?”
“No, no—certainly not.”
“Oh, very well, I thought you didn’t mean it.”
Gray was then liberated from the grasp which came within one degree of suffocation, and he said,—
“I will be candid with you. I have forty pounds with me, which I will divide as you propose.”
“Forty? Humph! It’s d—d little; but I hate all grumbling. We can’t have more than a cat and her skin, say I.”
“No, certainly,” said Gray. “I didn’t understand you at first you see, or I should never have for a moment hesitated.”
“Oh, it’s all right—it’s all right. Never say die, sink me.”
“That’ll be ten pounds each,” remarked Gray, who really, as we know, had a very large sum about him—a sum so large indeed as materially to have inconvenienced him in his race down the Strand.
“So it will,” replied the man. “Now, you know the rules, my covey, as well as I do, I dare say?”
“What rules?”
“Why, you must strip and let me examine, for myself and Bill and Bill’s young woman, all your togs, to see whether you haven’t forgot a stray five pound note or so. No offence, my covey; but you know rules is rules all the world over, and fair play is a jewel of very great lustre, my rum ’un.”