The clock of St. Giles's had just struck six, when the faint, flickering gleam of a candle struggled through the uppermost windows of the hangman's house.
The few persons who were passing along at that hour, and on that dark winter's morning, shuddered as they caught a glimpse of the sickly glare through the obscurity and the mist—for they thought within themselves, "The executioner is up early on account of the man that's to be hanged at eight o'clock."
And such was indeed the case.
Smithers rose shortly before six; and, having lighted the solitary candle that stood upon the mantel, proceeded to the floor below to call his son.
"Gibbet, you lazy hound!" he cried, thundering with his fist at the door of the hump-back's room; "get up."
"I'm getting up, father," replied the lad, from the interior of the chamber.
"Well, make haste about it," said the executioner in a savage tone.
He then returned to the loft.
There was something horribly fantastic in the appearance of that place. The dim and sickly light of the candle did but little more than redeem from complete obscurity the various strange objects which we have already described. But as the penetrating eye of the executioner plunged into the visible darkness of the loft, and beheld the ominous figure balancing beneath the beam, while its mask of a livid white hue wore a ghastly appearance in contrast with the black body and limbs which it surmounted,—no sentiment of horror nor of alarm agitated his heart.
The avocations of the man had brutalized him, and blunted every humane feeling which he had once possessed.