He struggled on in the dark a little further, and then he suddenly paused. A thought had struck him.
"Oh, what a glorious thing," he said, "if I could only now fire the old house, and so scorch some of those idiots, who are no doubt running from room to room full of mad delight at the opportunity to do so, and at the prospect that they may light upon me, and so share the money among them that is offered for my blood. It is a tempting thought."
Todd felt in his pocket for the matches that had been supplied to him by his departed friend, Mr. Lupin, and he found that he had some of them left, although all the little bits of wax ends of candles were gone.
"A match will do as well as a torch to set fire to a house. I will chance it, for afterwards I shall most bitterly repent not having done so. Oh, yes, I will go back and chance it. I know how to do it; and if that Sir Richard Blunt, whom I yet hope to see in death, has not removed the materials I placed for the firing of the house, I can do it easily. Oh, that will be most capital! I think it will make me laugh again! Ha!—ha! yes, it will make me laugh again!"
He stood for the space of time of about two minutes in deep thought, with his hands compressed upon his brow; and then he muttered—
"Yes, there is no difficulty. If I can but reach the flooring of that cupboard beneath the parlour, it will do."
He rapidly made up his mind to attempt this most perilous act of setting fire to his old house, after all; notwithstanding it was now to his knowledge filled with his enemies, and that his returning was a matter of the greatest danger to himself.
He crept back by the way he had gone, and soon reached the cellar again under his shop. That cellar run partially under the parlour likewise; and it was upon that circumstance, well known to him, that Todd based his hopes of being able, with safety to himself, to fire the old house.
He shook a little as he reached the cellar underneath the shop. It was a natural thing that he should do so; for he knew that he was doing the very reverse of what impulse would have prompted him to do, namely, fly from his enemies. The mode of getting into that cellar might, for all he knew to the contrary, be found out at the most inopportune moment for him that could be conceived, and he might find himself surrounded almost at any moment by his foes.
No wonder Todd shook a little.