Scarcely had these words issued from the lips of the burglar, when the door was thrown open, and Montague entered the room.
He held a lamp in one hand, and a pistol in the other; and it was easy to perceive that he had been alarmed in the midst of his repose, for he had nothing on save his trousers and his shirt.
On the sudden appearance of an individual thus armed, Tom the Cracksman exclaimed, "At him—down with him! We must make a fight of it."
The light of the lamp, which Montague held in his hand, streamed full upon the countenance and person of Walter Sydney, who was struggling violently in the suffocating grasp of the Cracksman.
"Hell and furies!" ejaculated Dick Flairer, dropping his dark lantern and a bunch of skeleton keys upon the floor, while his face was suddenly distorted with an expression of indescribable horror; then, in obedience to the natural impulse of his alarm, he rushed towards the window, the shutters and casement of which had been forced open, leapt through it, and disappeared amidst the darkness of the night.
Astonished by this strange event, Bill Bolter instantly turned his eyes from Montague, whom he was at that moment about to attack, towards the Cracksman and Walter Sydney.
The colour fled from the murderer's cheeks, as if a sudden spell had fallen upon him: his teeth chattered—his knees trembled—and he leant against the table for support.
There was the identical being whom four years and five months before, they had hurled down the trap-door of the old house in Chick Lane:—and who, that had ever met that fate as yet, had survived to tell the tale?
For an instant the entire frame of the murderer was convulsed with alarm: the apparition before him—the vision of his assassinated wife—and the reminiscences of other deeds of the darkest dye, came upon him with the force of a whirlwind. For an instant, we say, was he convulsed with alarm;—in another moment he yielded to his fears, and, profiting by his companion's example, disappeared like an arrow through the window.
Amongst persons engaged in criminal pursuits, a panic-terror is very catching. The Cracksman—formidable and daring as he was—suddenly experienced an unknown and vague fear, when he perceived the horror and unassumed alarm which had taken possession of his comrades. He loosened his grasp upon his intended victim: Walter made a last desperate effort, and released himself from the burglar's power.