“No, no, my dear!” renewed the Jew, “and I don’t quarrel with it now, because, if it had never happened, you might never have clapped eyes upon the boy to notice him, and so led to the discovery that it was him you were looking for. Well; I got him back for you by means of the girl, and then she begins to favour him.”
“Throttle the girl!” said Monks, impatiently.
“Why, we can’t afford to do that just now, my dear,” replied the Jew, smiling; “and, besides, that sort of thing is not in our way, or one of these days I might be glad to have it done. I know what these girls are, Monks, well. As soon as the boy begins to harden, she’ll care no more for him than for a block of wood. You want him made a thief: if he is alive, I can make him one from this time; and if—if—” said the Jew, drawing nearer to the other,—“it’s not likely, mind,—but if the worst comes to the worst, and he is dead——”
“It’s no fault of mine if he is!” interposed the other man, with a look of terror, and clasping the Jew’s arm with trembling hands. “Mind that, Fagin; I had no hand in it. Anything but his death, I told you from the first. I wont shed blood; it’s always found out, and haunts a man besides. If they shot him dead, I was not the cause; do you hear me? Fire this infernal den!—what’s that?”
“What!” cried the Jew, grasping the coward round the body with both arms as he sprung to his feet. “Where?”
“Yonder!” replied the man, glaring at the opposite wall. “The shadow—I saw the shadow of a woman, in a cloak and bonnet, pass along the wainscot like a breath!”
The Jew released his hold, and they rushed tumultuously from the room. The candle, wasted by the draught, was standing where it had been placed, and shewed them the empty staircase, and their own white faces. They listened intently, but a profound silence reigned throughout the house.
“It’s your fancy,” said the Jew, taking up the light, and turning to his companion.
“I’ll swear I saw it!” replied Monks, trembling violently. “It was bending forward when I saw it first, and when I spoke it darted away.”
The Jew glanced contemptuously at the pale face of his associate, and, telling him he could follow if he pleased, ascended the stairs. They looked into all the rooms; they were cold, bare, and empty. They descended into the passage, and thence into the cellars below. The green damp hung upon the low walls, and the tracks of the snail and slug glistened in the light; but all was still as death.