"I'm quite agreeable," returned Banks, with as much complacency as if a party of pleasure had been proposed to him. "I b'lieve you've got a brazier."
"Yes—up in the front room, ground-floor, where all the resurrection-tools are kept," answered Tidkins. "You go and fetch it—bring plenty of coal and wood, and the bellows—and we'll precious soon make the old woman speak out."
The undertaker departed to execute this commission; and Tidkins again reasoned with the hag.
But all he could get out of her was a moaning exclamation; and as soon as he withdrew his hand from her shoulder, she began rocking backwards and forwards as before.
It suddenly struck the Resurrection Man that she was actually losing her senses through the rigours of confinement; and he became alarmed—not on her account, but for the secret which he wished to extort from her.
As this idea flashed to his mind, he cast a rapid glance towards the old woman; and surprised her as she herself was scrutinising his countenance with the most intense interest, while she was all the time pretending to be listlessly rocking her self.
"Another gag—by hell!" ejaculated Tidkins "What do you take me for? You think that I am such a miserable fool as to be deluded by your tricks? Not I, indeed! Ah! you would affect madness—idiotcy—would you? Why, if you really went mad through captivity in this place, I would knock you on the head at once—for fear that if you were let loose you might preach in your ravings about my designs concerning Kate Wilmot. But if you tell me, in your sober senses, all I want to know, I'll give you your freedom in twelve hours; because I am very well aware that you would not, when in possession of your reason, attract attention to your own ways of life by betraying mine."
"And if I tell you all I know," said the hag, seeing that her new design was detected and that it was useless to persist in it,—"if I tell you all I know, why will you not allow me to go home at once?"
"Because you came here in the night—and you shall go away in the night: because you arrived blindfolded—and you shall depart blindfolded," replied the Resurrection Man, sternly. "Do you think that I would let an old treacherous hag like you discover the whereabouts of this house? Why—you have no more idea at present whether you're in Saint Giles's or the Mint—Clerkenwell or Shoreditch—Bond Street or Rosemary Lane;—and I don't intend you ever to be any wiser. But here comes Banks, with the brazier."
The undertaker made his appearance, laden with the articles for which he had been sent.