“Your own money, indeed!” ejaculated Vitriol Bob, with a chuckling laugh. “Was it your’n when Mother Mortimer had it safe in her own box? And I should just like to know how you fust come by it? Not honestly, I’ll swear, old feller. Such a seedy-looking cove, living in such a way as you was, couldn’t have got near upon six thousand pound by wot’s called legitimate means. But that’s neether here nor there: I don’t care two figs how you got the tin—and if I ask no questions, I shan’t have no lies told me. Von thing is wery certain—that I’ve got it now.”
“But—but—you surely—my dear friend—you—” stammered Torrens, absolutely aghast at the idea, of still remaining a beggar.
“Come, let’s have no more of this drivelling nonsense,” interrupted Vitriol Bob, in a tone of unmitigated contempt: then, as he refilled and relighted his pipe, be observed, “Why, you have been in a fidget and a stew all day, ever since we secured the swag at the coffee-house. Don’t you see, my dear feller, that people in our sitiwations must act with somethink like common prudence? The old voman may rouse hell’s delight about her loss; and that was why I thought we’d better keep ourselves scarce for a time. So I made you stay close with me at the flash lodging-ken in the Mint all the arternoon till it was dusk; and then I brought you here. And here,” added Vitriol Bob, “we are safe enow: ’cos only Pig-faced Poll, Jack Rily, and one or two others of my pals knows anythink about this place being my haunt when I’m afeard of getting into trouble;—and there’s no danger of them splitting on us. So far from that, the Pig-faced will be sure to come here presently, when she finds I don’t wisit her own quarters this evening; and she’ll bring a basket of prog along with her—so that we shall have a jolly good supper in due time. Drink, old feller!”
Thus speaking, the ruffian refilled his own tumbler, and pushed the brandy bottle across the dirty table to Torrens, who did not, however, touch it—for his glass was only half emptied; and he experienced such lively sensations of alarm, that he felt as if his brain were reeling and his intellects were leaving him.
There he was—a feeble, helpless, weak old man, entirely in the power of an individual whom he knew to be of the most desperate character, but with whom he had joined in companionship only through the hope of recovering at least one-half of that treasure to gain which, in the first instance, he had imbrued his hands in blood. There he was—alone with that miscreant, in a place the aspect of which was sufficient to fill his attenuated soul with the gloomiest thoughts and the most melancholy forebodings,—alone with a demon in human shape, in a ruined and desolate tenement, to augment the cheerless influence of which superstition had lent its aid,—alone with a very fiend, in a haunt the ominous features of which were dimly shadowed forth and rendered more hideous by the dull, glimmering light of the solitary candle with its long wick and its sickly flame.
“Well—what are you thinking of?—and why don’t you drink?” were the words which, suddenly falling on the old man’s ears after a pause, awoke him as it were from a lethargy—a lethargy, however, in which the mind had been painfully active, though the body was motionless—petrified!
“I—I—was wondering how long we should have to remain here,” stammered Torrens, starting as if shaken by a strong spasm or moved by an electric shock.
“I asked you the question just now—and—and you did not give me a reply.”
“Well—it all depends, my fine feller,” answered Vitriol Bob. “Three or four days, perhaps——”
“Three or four days!” almost shrieked Torrens. “I shall die if I linger so long in this horrible place!”