“The sessions are on,” said Kags: “if they get the inquest over; if Bolter turns King’s evidence, as of course he will, from what he’s said already; they can prove Fagin an accessory before the fact, and get the trial on on Friday; he’ll swing in six days from this, by G—!”
“You should have heard the people groan,” said Chitling; “the officers fought like devils or they’d have torn him away. He was down once, but they made a ring round him, and fought their way along. You should have seen how he looked about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to them as if they were his dearest friends. I can see ’em now, not able to stand upright with the pressing of the mob, and dragging him along amongst ’em; I can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and snarling with their teeth and making at him like wild beasts; I can see the blood upon his hair and beard, and hear the dreadful cries with which the women worked themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore they’d tear his heart out!” The horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his ears, and with his eyes fast closed got up and paced violently to and fro like one distracted.
Whilst he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs, and Sikes’s dog bounded into the room. They ran to the window, down stairs, and into the street. The dog had jumped in at an open window; he made no attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be seen.
“What’s the meaning of this!” said Toby, when they had returned. “He can’t be coming here. I—I—hope not.”
“If he was coming here, he’d have come with the dog,” said Kags, stooping down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor. “Here; give us some water for him; he has run himself faint.”
“He’s drunk it all up, every drop,” said Kags, after watching the dog some time in silence. “Covered with mud—lame—half-blind—he must have come a long way.”
“Where can he have come from!” exclaimed Toby. “He’s been to the other kens of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here, where he’s been many a time and often. But where can he have come from first, and how comes he here alone, without the other!”
“He” (none of them called the murderer by his old name) “He can’t have made away with himself. What do you think?” said Chitling.
Toby shook his head.
“If he had,” said Kags, “the dog ’ud want to lead us away to where he did it. No: I think he’s got out of the country, and left the dog behind. He must have given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn’t be so easy.”