He ascended the ladder as he spoke, and after listening attentively and hearing nothing, he slid open the panel and looked into the room. All was still, and the glorious bright sunshine was streaming in upon the dingy walls and blackened floor.
Again Gray listened—all was still, and he got through the opening with a lurking smile of gratified cunning upon his face. He, however, could not forget his habitual caution, and it was with a slinking, cat-like movement that he walked along the floor of the room.
He intended to walk through the entire house, to see if his unwelcome visitors had left behind them any traces of their presence. Opening the door of the room, very carefully, he began to descend the stairs; he muttered to himself as he went,—
“’Twas an hour of great danger, I have been saved by what good and pious people would call a miracle, had it happened to them, but I suppose it’s merely an accident in Jacob Gray’s case; well, well, be it so—accident or miracle, ’tis all the same to me; and I am not sorry too, to leave this old house: it has grown hateful and loathsome to me. I would not pass such another night in it as I have passed for—for—much money. No, no—it would indeed require a heap of gold to tempt me.”
Now he reached the door of a large cupboard on the staircase, which was wide open, as Sir Francis and his men had left it in the course of their search.
“So,” sneered Gray, “they have looked for me in the cupboards, have they? Well, the keener the search has been, the better; it is less likely to be renewed, far less likely. I wish I could think of any plan of vengeance upon this magistrate, for the misery he has caused me; oh, if I could inflict upon him but one tithe of the agony he has made me suffer within the last hour, I should be much rejoiced. Curses on him—curses on him and his efficiency as a magistrate: a meddling cursed fiend he is to me—I must think, Master Hartleton; some little plan of revenge upon you may suggest itself to me by-and-by?“
Jacob Gray rubbed his hands together, and gave a sickly smile, as he said this. He was about the middle of the staircase, and it was fortunate for him he had his hands on the banisters, or in the intense horror and surprise that suddenly overcame him, he might have fallen down the remaining portion of the crazy stairs.
He heard a door open, leading into the passage, from one of the lower rooms, and a heavy careless step rapidly approached the staircase, while a common street melody, whistled with a shrillness and distinctness that was more horrible to Jacob Gray than would have been the trumpet of the angel at the day of judgment, fell upon his ears.
Jacob Gray gave himself up for lost. The blood rushed to his heart with frightful violence, and he thought he should have fainted. How he accomplished the feat he afterwards knew not, but he stepped back. Two paces brought him to the cupboard. It seemed like the door of heaven opened to him. He doubled himself up under a large shelf that went across the middle of it; and clutching the door by a small rim of the panelling, he drew it close.
Mr. Elias, with his hands in his pockets, and whistling the before mentioned popular melody, passed on up the staircase, leaving Jacob Gray almost distilled to a jelly with fear.