"And now that you can't find that cussed indiwidual," said Banks, "you mean to have a go in earnest against the Prince?"
"I do," answered Tidkins, with an abruptness which was in itself expressive of demoniac ferocity. 'You come to me to-morrow morning; and see if I won't invent some scheme that shall put Richard Markham in my power. I tell you what it is, Banks," added the Resurrection Man, in a hoarse—hollow whisper, "I hate that fellow to a degree I cannot explain; and depend upon it, he shall gnash his teeth in one of the dark cells yonder before he's a week older."
"And what good will that do you?" asked the undertaker.
"What good!" repeated Tidkins, scornfully: then, after a short pause, he turned towards Banks, and said in a low voice, "We'll make him pay an immense sum for his ransom—a sum that shall enrich us both, Ned: and then——"
"And then?" murmured Banks, interrogatively.
"And then—when I've got all I can from him," replied Tidkins, "I'll murder him!"
With these words—uttered in a tone of terrible ferocity—the Resurrection Man hastened away from the door of the undertaker's dwelling.
The sky was overcast with dark clouds of stormy menace: the night was dark; and big drops of rain began to patter down, as Tidkins hurried along the streets leading towards his own abode—that abode which he was now on the point of revisiting after an absence of two years!
At length he reached the house; and though he stopped for a few minutes to examine its outward appearance from the middle of the street, the night was so dark that he could not distinguish whether its aspect had undergone any change.
Taking from his pocket the door-key, which he had carefully retained ever since he abandoned the place after the discovery of the loss of his treasure, he soon effected an entrance into the house.