Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

by George Manville Fenn

But not so quickly as Jarker made a leap backwards into the road, dodged right under a horse’s legs, round an omnibus, past cabs, carts, and wagons, and in and out and about like an eel, invulnerable to the tread of horses’ feet or the passage of wheels. Ordinary people would have been run over half-a-dozen times, but Bill Jarker was not, and on he tore, with the two constables in full chase.

Jarker had not much start, but he made the most of it, with the full determination of making his escape if possible; perhaps even for a small robbery he might have run hard, and fought hard, to avoid capture; but at the present time there was a look of desperation in his face that prevented more than one willing hand from attempting his seizure; and away he sped, in and out of the vehicles coming and going upon the slippery road. All at once he caught sight of a new peril; right in front there was another policeman, and if, to avoid him, he took to the pavement, so great was the crowd of passengers, that he must have been hemmed-in and captured directly. So on dashed Jarker, right at the constable in front, coming down upon him with the impetus of a battering-ram. Over he went, and on dashed Bill with the other constables in close pursuit, and shouts and cries rising on all sides. “Stop thief! stop thief!” with the tail of followers increasing each moment.

Jarker’s breath came hot and thick, and he felt that a few more minutes past, and he would be marching through the street handcuffed and with his liberty stopped; he thought no more of that, but shuddered, while, at the same moment, hope animated his breast, for he could see, far in front, a haven of safety: right before him the street was up, and the boards and bricks told of repairs to the sewers, while the large heap of earth pointed out the depth down at which they lay.

On tore Jarker, racing over the ground with a long, loping run, and on came the police, with the tag of idlers; but the goal was reached. With one bound Jarker cleared the barrier, ran and stumbled over the loose earth for some distance, and then dropped to the first platform, slid down ladder after ladder, passed man after man, too astonished and startled to attempt to seize him, sometimes falling, sometimes climbing, with the deal planks springing, and brickbats and clods of earth falling after him. One man made a blow at him with his spade, but it came too late, for Jarker reached the bottom, leaped into the black stream, here but little over his knees, went splashing away under the echoing dark arch of the sewer, into the dense black passages that run for so many miles under London, and was out of sight long before the first policeman was half-way down the great opening.

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 plashing 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 phosphorescent light; when with a curse he threw the useless splints away and pressed on.