Dark, plashing, echoing paths, with noisome mephitic smells and the sound of hurrying waters—paths that might in ignorance be traversed for days and days, until the weary wanderer sank down for the black stream to bear him out to the great river. Here there would be a smaller sewer off to the right, here one to the left; while drain-pipe and culvert emptied their filthy streams, augmenting always the larger sewer where the ruffian waded; as the current swelled and rose and rolled swiftly on, at times with almost sufficient force to render his footing insecure.
At one time the water was up to his breast, but it soon shallowed when he entered a branch and faced the stream, guiding himself ever with his hand upon the slimy wall, as if thoroughly acquainted with his road, and proceeding the while at no mean rate along the gloomy way; for Jarker had been here before, and he pressed on fearless of darkness or rats, thinking that the only danger that could assail him would be a rush of water after a heavy rain. At times, though, he stopped splashing and beating the stream, and imitating the snapping, snarling bark of a dog, for something would run scratching over him—then another, and another—keen, hunger-bitten little animals; then there followed splash after splash, as they leaped into the water. Now he was clear of them again, and stopped puzzled, feeling along the wall on both sides for something he could not find—some guide-mark or open sewer-mouth; but now again came the little eager animals, hunger-driven and fierce, crowding and swimming round him, swarming up his back and breast, and biting sharply with their little keen teeth as the wretch leaped and bounded about, tearing half-a-dozen off to make room for a score.
“If I only had one of their gallus lights!” shrieked the ruffian, forgetful of the risk of being heard, and of the ruse he had before successfully practised, and in the horror of his position ready even to have given himself up as he cursed and yelled in a frightful manner—the hideous noises echoing along the vaulted sewer, and sounding doubly frightful.
“Curse ’em! I shall be gnawed to death!” shrieked Jarker, as he could not help recalling the times when he had gloated with delight over the performances of some steel-teethed terrier in a pit amidst a dozen rats; and now, as he fought there, splashing about in the water, and tearing off rat after rat to crush them in his powerful hands, he could not but feel how the tables were turned, and groaned piteously as a great dread came upon him—a horror blacker than the black darkness around. But Jarker fought on savagely for his life, while the diminutive size of his adversaries formed their protection again and again. He had his life-preserver out now, and struck with it at random, fierce and heavy blows, each of which would have beaten the life out of a dozen rats, but only once or twice had they any effect, and then he struck the brick side of the sewer, when the lead knob was loosened and fell from the whalebone handle into the rushing water, and with a curse Jarker dashed the useless fragment away.
Faint and harassed, his great brute strength of no avail, his hands and face streaming with blood, Jarker now made a fierce rush up stream; but his progress was slow with the water so deep; when, as if fearing to lose their prey, the rats redoubled their efforts and leaped upon him furiously, till, half-mad with the horror of their fearful assault, one he had never known before in his many sewer wanderings through having been provided with a light, Jarker drew in a long breath, exhaled it again, thoroughly inflated his lungs as he beat off his assailants, and then plunged beneath the water, groping his way slowly up stream, and keeping under the foul water for nearly a minute, when he raised his head for breath, and plunged under again and again.
His plan succeeded; for, evidently at a loss, the tribe of rats had gone down with the stream; and then he was alone and afraid to stir, lest he should bring them back, as he stood panting and dripping with the noisome water, and leaned against the slippery wall.
“I did say as I’d keep a dawg,” growled Jarker at last; “and if I’d ha’ had one—” And then he burst out into a hideous string of oaths and curses at what he called his ill luck, as, after listening for some time, he resumed his way in the echoing subterranean labyrinth, trembling lest the rats should have heard his voice.
But he did not go far before he stopped as if puzzled, and stood thinking, and listening to the rush of the stream and the trickling of drain after drain as it emptied itself into the main current, itself but a tributary of a greater. He dared not retrace his steps on account of the rats, but went slowly on; stopped, went on again; stopped once more to scratch his dripping head; and then he gave a leap and a cry of terror as he felt an enemy swim up once more and try to effect a lodgment. Then he hurried forward through the dense black darkness, then back a little way in a strange, excited way, tearing and splashing about furiously as a new horror assailed him; and at last muttering low blasphemies, muttering them in a low whisper lest they should be heard by the rats, he made another push on for many yards, cursing the police, the rats, and his ill luck. Once he stumbled and fell with a heavy splash, to be swept along over and over by the stream before he recovered his footing to stand half-drowned and clinging to the bricks, giving vent now to a whimpering, sobbing howl, that seemed as if it had come from a dog; for, with his courage gone and his head in a whirl, he stood now in the intense darkness afraid to move, as his imagination peopled the sewers around him with horrors at the very thought of which he shuddered; for in spite of scores of rambles in these subterranean channels, with whose many turns he had considered himself perfectly familiar, Bill Jarker had lost his way.
The police turned back after pursuing Jarker for a short distance along the sewer; but though not disposed to follow him along the dark subway, they had not given him up, for the outlets were carefully watched both by the places where repairs were going on and also at the mouths in the Thames’ bank; while, after proper arrangements had been made, the sewers were searched that night with lanterns; the principal man engaged more than once announcing in a very loud voice, which went echoing along the arched ways, that he (Jarker) might just as well give up as be starved out; but for all that, Mr Jarker was not found.