"I don't belong to them. I don't know them! Help, help!" cried Oliver, struggling in the man's powerful grasp.
"Help!" repeated the man. "Yes, I'll help you, you young rascal! What books are these? You've been a-stealin' 'em, have you? Give 'em here!"
With these words the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck him on the head.
Weak with recent illness, stupefied by the blows and the suddenness of the attack, terrified by the brutality of the man--who was none other than Bill Sikes, the roughest of all Fagin's pupils--what could one poor child do? Darkness had set in; it was a low neighbourhood; resistance was useless. Sikes and Nancy hurried the boy on between them through courts and alleys till, once more, he was within the dreadful house where the Dodger had first brought him. Long after the gas-lamps were lighted, Mr. Brownlow sat waiting in his parlour. The servant had run up the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of Oliver. The housekeeper had waited anxiously at the open door. But no Oliver returned.
IV.--Oliver Falls among Friends
Mr. Bill Sikes having an important house-breaking engagement with his fellow-robber, Mr. Toby Crackit, at Shepperton, decided that Oliver must accompany him.
It was a detached house, and the night was dark as pitch when Sikes and Crackit, dragging Oliver along, climbed the wall and approached a narrow, shuttered window. In vain Oliver implored them to let him go.
"Listen, you young limb," whispered Sikes, when a crowbar had overcome the shutter, and the lattice had been opened. "I'm going to put you through there." Drawing a dark lantern from his pocket, he added, "Take this light; go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the hall to the street door; unfasten it, and let us in."
The boy was put through the window, and Sikes, pointing to the door with his pistol, told him if he faltered he would shoot him.
Hardly had Oliver advanced a few yards before Sikes called out, "Back! back!"