One beautiful evening, when the first shades of twilight were beginning to settle upon the earth, Oliver sat at his window, intent upon his books. He had been poring over them for some time; and, as the day had been uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a great deal, by slow degrees he fell asleep.
There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, or enable it to ramble at its pleasure.
Oliver knew, perfectly well, that he was in his own little room; that his books were lying on the table before him; that the sweet air was stirring among the creeping plants outside. And yet he was asleep. Suddenly, the scene changed; the air became close and confined; and he thought, with a glow of terror, that he was in the Jew's house again. There sat the hideous old man, in his accustomed corner, pointing at him, and whispering to another man, with his face averted, who sat beside him.
"Hush, my dear!" he thought he heard the Jew say; "it is he, sure enough. Come away."
"He!" the other man seemed to answer; "could I mistake him, think you? If a crowd of ghosts were to put themselves into his exact shape, and he stood among them, there is something that would tell me how to point him out!"
The man seemed to say this with such dreadful hatred, that Oliver awoke with the fear and started up.
Good Heaven! what was that which sent the blood tingling to his heart, and deprived him of his voice and of power to move! There—there—at the window—close before him—so close that he could have almost touched him before he started back—with his eyes peering into the room, and meeting his—there stood the Jew! And beside him were the scowling features of a dark man whom Oliver had seen only once, but had instinctively learned to fear.
It was but an instant, a glance, a flash, before his eyes, and they were gone. But they had recognized him, and he them. He knew they were once again lying in wait to seize him, and that his days of peace and happiness were numbered.
Voice and motion came back to him with the fear; and leaping from the window he called loudly for help.
Nevertheless, no trace of Fagin or the stranger could be found, though the search was pursued with haste; and Oliver's friends were forced to believe that it had been only a feverish dream.