"Young Bates," said Kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he felt himself.
The knocking came again. No, it wasn't he. He never knocked like that.
Crackit went to the window, and, shaking all over, drew in his head. There was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough. The dog, too, was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door.
"We must let him in," he said, taking up the candle.
"Isn't there any help for it?" asked the other man, in a hoarse voice.
"None. He must come in."
"Don't leave us in the dark," said Kags, taking down a candle from the chimney-piece, and lighting it with such a trembling hand that the knocking was twice repeated before he had finished.
Crackit went down to the door, and returned, followed by a man with the lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his head under his hat. He drew them slowly off. Blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short, thick breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes.
He laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room, but shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance over his shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall—as close as it would go—ground it against it—and sat down.
Not a word had been exchanged. He looked from one to another in silence. If an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly averted. When his hollow voice broke silence, they all three started. They seemed never to have heard its tones before.