Madame Flirt / A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera'

by Charles Edward Pearce

"Damnation! I'm not going to be trapped," roared Rofflash, "I know the secret way to the chapel. You stay here and face 'em."

"No. If that murderous mob doesn't find you they'll turn upon me. I'm an old man but they'll have no mercy," whined Mountchance.

"You fool. Can't you see that some one inside the house must have bolted and barred the door? If they don't find you they'll search until they do. You must tell them that I'm not in the place—that you haven't seen me. That'll satisfy 'em and they'll go away quickly."

"It's you that's the fool. Somebody must have seen you enter—how else did they know you were here?"

Another ominous splintering noise, then the sharp crack of ripping wood.

"No more of this damned nonsense," muttered Rofflash, and swinging his arm he gave Mountchance a blow with the flat of his hand, toppling him over. Without waiting to see what injury he had inflicted Rofflash rushed to a tall cabinet, entered it and closed the doors after him just as a yell of savage joy was raised outside. The iron bar was still across the entrance but there was a jagged aperture above and below. A couple of seconds more and the cabinet was empty. Rofflash had disappeared through a secret door at the back.

Mountchance's house, as already mentioned, was really an adjunct of St. Thomas's chapel, so far at least as the foundation was concerned. This foundation had once formed the lower chapel or crypt and was then the only distinctive relic of the bridge built by Peter of Colechurch, in the thirteenth century. Rofflash descended the uneven loose bricks of the narrow winding staircase into the dungeon-like apartment. The stone floor was not much above the level of the river at high tide and a lancet window on each side of the bridge admitted a glimmer of light in the day time. It was now pitch dark.

Rofflash groped his way over the slimy floor to a small door which he knew opened on to an abutment between two arches. He only did this by feeling the wall as he went. He hoped when outside to hail a passing wherry. At any rate it was unlikely his hiding place would be discovered by any of the mob.

In the meantime the shop and room above were filled with a rabble more than half of which was out for plunder. Mountchance was lying on the floor unconscious, but no one bothered about him. In the opinion of some it was perhaps as well, as he would be unable to prevent them doing as they liked. This opinion was not held by Sally Salisbury. She was convinced Rofflash was in the house though she had not seen him actually enter. It angered her to think that Mountchance who could have told her anything was as good as dead. She called upon the crowd to search for the murderer but they turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. They were much more interested in looting the place; and finding the iron bound coffer and hearing the chink of coin within, they attacked it savagely and succeeded in smashing the lock.

The sight of gold was too much for them. They scrambled, they fought, they trampled upon each other. The yellow metal acted upon them like strong drink. In the midst of the pandemonium came a deafening explosion, a vivid flash of red, a volume of acrid suffocating vapour. Another explosion and men came rushing from Mountchance's laboratory—terror written in their faces. Helter-skelter the crowd darted from the house forcing Sally Salisbury with them whether she would or not. In the mad fight for gold large glass bottles filled with acids, alcohol and other inflammable liquids had been upset and smashed, and the smouldering fire in the furnace did the rest. What with the bundles of dried herbs which burnt like so much tinder and the woodwork, the panelled walls and furniture, nothing could save the house.