Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
know that I spoke to you about
not using the place any more!"
"It's false!" exclaimed the Mummy.
"It's true; for I said to you at the time that I
must brick up the wall myself some night, before any new people take the
carpenter's yard, or they might wonder what the devil we could want with a
place under ground like that; and it would be the means of blowing us!"
"It a lie! you never told me a word about
it," persisted the old harridan doggedly.
"Perdition take you!" cried the man.
"The affair of this cursed Markham will be the ruin of us both!"
The Resurrection Man still had a hope left: the
subterranean pit beneath the stairs was deep, and Markham might have been
stunned by the fail.
He hastened to the trap-door, and raised it. The vivid
light of his candle was thrown to the very bottom of the pit by means of the
bright reflector of tin.
The hole was empty.
Maddened by disappointment - a prey to the most
terrible apprehensions - and uncertain whether to flee or remain in his den,
the Resurrection Man paced the passage in a state of mind which would not have
been envied by even a criminal on his way to execution.
THE FRUITLESS SEARCH
WHEN Richard Markham was precipitated into the hole beneath the
stairs, by the perfidy of the Mummy, he fell with his head against a stone, and
became insensible.
He lay in this manner for upwards of half an hour, when a
current of air which blew steadily upon his face, revived him; and he awoke to
all the horrors of his situation.
He had seen and passed through enough that night to unhinge
the strongest mind. The secrets of the accursed den to a subterranean dungeon
of which he now lay,- the atrocious mysteries revealed by the conversation of
the body-snatchers ere they set out on their expedition to Shoreditch Church, -
the cold corpse of some unfortunate being most inhumanly murdered, and all the
paraphernalia of a hideous death, in the front-room of that outpost of
hell, - haunted his imagination, and worked him up to a pitch of
excitement bordering upon frenzy.
He felt that if he did not escape from that hole, he should
dash his head against the wall, or go raving mad.
He clenched his flats and struck them against his forehead
in an access of despair.
And then he endeavoured to reason with himself, and to look
the perils that beset him, in the face.
But he could not remain cool - he could not control his
agonising emotions.
"O God!" he exclaimed aloud; "what have I
done to be thus afflicted? What sin have I committed to be thus tortured? Have
I not served thee in word and deed to the best of my ability? Do I not worship
- venerate - adore thee? O God! why wilt thou that I should die thus early -
and die, too, so cruel a death? Is there not room on earth enough for a worm
like me? Have I not been sufficiently tried, O my God? and in the hour of my
deepest, bitterest anguish, did I ever deny thee? Did I repine against thy
supreme will when false men encompassed me to destroy me in the opinion of the
world? Hear me, O God - hear me and let me not die this time ;- let me not
perish, O Lord, thus miserably!"
Such was the fervent, heart-felt prayer which Markham breathed
to heaven in the agony and despair of his soul.
He extended his arms, with his hands clasped together, in
the ardour of his appeal; and they encountered an opening in the wall.
A ray of hope penetrated to his heart; and which upon
further search, he discovered an aperture sufficiently wide for him to creep
through, he exclaimed. "O Lord! I thank thee, thou hast heard my prayer!
Pardon - oh! pardon my repinings; - forgive me that I dared to question
thy sovereign will!"
At all risks he determined to pass through the opening -
lead whithersoever it might; for he knew that he could scarcely be worse off;
and he felt a secret influence which prompted him thus to act, and for which he
could not wholly account.
He crept through the hole in the partition-wall, and found
himself upon a soft damp ground.
Every thing was veiled in the blackest obscurity.
He groped about with his hands, and stepped cautiously
forward, pausing at every pace.
Presently his foot encountered what appeared to ha a step to
his infinite joy he ascertained, in another moment, that he was at the bottom
of a flight of stone stairs.
He ascended them, and came to a door, which yielded to his
touch. He proceeded slowly and cautiously along a passage, groping his way with
his hands; and, in a few moments he reached another door, which opened with a
latch.
He was now in the open street!
Carefully closing the door behind him, he hurried away from
that accursed vicinity as if he were pursued by blood-hounds.
He ran - he ran, reckless of the deep pools of stagnant
water, careless of the heaps of thick mud through which he passed, -
indifferent to the bruises which he sustained against the angles of houses, the
corners of streets, and the stone-steps of doors,- unmindful of the dangers
which he dared in threading thus wildly those rugged and uneven thoroughfares
amidst the dense obscurity which covered the earth.
He ran - he ran, a delirium of joy thrilling in his brain,
and thanksgiving in his soul; for now that he had escaped from the peril which
so lately beset him, it appeared to his imagination a thousand times more
frightful than when it actually impended over him. Oh! he was happy - happy -
thrice happy, in the enjoyment of liberty, and the security of life once more
;- and he began to look upon the scenes of that eventful night as an
accumulation of horrors which could have possibility only in a dream!
He ran - he ran, amidst those filthy lanes and foul streets,
where a nauseating atmosphere prevailed ;- but had he been threading a
labyrinth of rose-trees, amongst the most delicious perfumes, he could not have
experienced a more burning - ardent - furious joy! Yes - his delight was
madness, frenzy! On, on - splashed with mud - floundering through black puddles
- knee-deep in mire, - on, on he went - reckless which direction he pursued, so
long as the rapidity of his pace removed him afar from the accursed house that
had nearly become his tomb!
For an hour did he thus pursue his way.
At length he stopped through sheer exhaustion, and seated
himself upon the steps of a door over which a lamp was flickering.
He collected his scattered ideas as well as he could, and
began to wonder whither his wild and reckless course had led him: but no conjecture
on his part furnished him with any clue to solve the mystery of his present
whereabouts, he knew that he must be somewhere in the eastern district of the
metropolis; but in what precise spot it was impossible for him to tell.
While he was thus lost in vain endeavour to unravel the
tangled topographical skein which; perplexed his imagination, he heard
footsteps advancing along the street.
By the light of the lamp he soon distinguished a policeman,
walking with slow and measured steps along his beat.
"Will you have the kindness to tell me where I
am?" said Richard, accosting the officer: "I have lost my way. What
neighbourhood is this?"
"Ratcliff Highway, answered the policeman: "in the
middle of Wapping, you know."
"In the midst of Wapping!" ejaculated Markham, in
a tone of surprise and vexation.
And, truly enough, there he was in the centre of that
immense assemblage of dangerous streets, cutthroat lanes, and filthy alleys,
which swarm with crimps ever ready to entrap the reckless and generous-hearted
sailor; publicans who farm the unloading of the colliers, and compel those whom
they employ to take out half their wages in vile adulterated beer; and poor
half-starved coal-movers whose existence alternates between crushing toil and
killing intoxication. It was in this neighbourhood that Richard Markham now
was!
Heaven alone can tell what tortuous path and circuitous
routes he had been pursuing during the hour of his precipitate flight; but his
feet must have passed over many miles of ground from the instant that he
emerged from the murderers' den until he sank exhausted on the steps of a house
in Ratcliff Highway.
He was wet and covered with mud, and very cold. But he
suddenly remembered that there was a duty which he owed to society - an
imperative duty which be dared not neglect. He was impressed with the idea that
Providence had that night favoured his escape from the jaws of death, in order
that he might become the means of rooting up a den of horrors.
There was not a moment to be lost: the three miscreants,
unconscious of peril, had repaired to Shoreditch Church to exercise the least
terrible portion of their avocations in that sacred edifice: - it might yet be
time to secure them there. The policeman was still standing near him.
"Which is the way to the station-house?" suddenly
exclaimed Markham. "I have matters of
the deepest importance to
communicate to the police,- I can place them upon the scent of three miscreants
- three demons in human form —"
"And how came you to know about them?" asked the
officer.
"Oh! it is too long to tell you now - we shall only be
wasting time; and the villains may escape," cried Richard, in a tone of
excitement and with a wildness of manner which induced the officer to fancy
that his brain was turned.
"Well, come along with me," said the policeman;
"and you can tell all you know to the Superintendent."
Markham signified his readiness to accompany the officer;
and they proceeded to the station-house in
the neighbourhood.
There Richard was introduced to the Superintendent.
"I have this night," said the young man,
"escaped from the most fearful perils. I was proceeding along a dark,
narrow, and dirty street somewhere in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch Church, when
I was knocked down, and carried into a house where murder - yes, murder,"
added Markham, in a tone of fearful excitement, " seems to be committed
wholesale. At this moment there is a corpse - the corpse of some unfortunate
man who has been assassinated in a most inhuman manner - lying stretched out in
that house! I could tell you how the miscreants who frequent that den dispose
of their victims, -how they pounce upon those who pass their door, and
drag them into that human slaughter-house, - and how they make away with them
;- I could tell you horrors which would make your hair stand on end ;-
but we should lose time; for you may yet capture the three wretches whose
crimes have been his night so providentially revealed to me!"
"And where can we capture these men?" inquired the
Superintendent, surveying Markham from head to foot in a strange manner.
"They are at this moment at Shoreditch Church,"
returned the young man; "they are engaged in exhuming a corpse for a
surgeon whom they were to meet at half-past one at the back of the burial
ground."
"And it is now three o'clock," said the
Superintendent. " I dare say they have got over their business by this
time. You had much better sit down here by the fire and rest yourself; and when
it is daylight some one shall see you home to your friends."
"Sit here tranquilly, when justice claims its
due!" ejaculated Markham; "impossible! If you will not second my
endeavours to expose a most appalling system of wholesale murder —"
"My dear sir," interrupted the Superintendent,
"do compose yourself, and get such horrid thoughts out of your head. Come
- be reasonable. This is London, you know - and it is impossible that the
things you have described could be committed in so populous a city."
"I tell you that every word I have uttered is the
strict truth," cried Markham emphatically.
"And how came you to escape from such a place?"
demanded the Superintendent.
"The villain who attacked me thought me dead - he
fancied that I was killed by the blow; but it had only stunned me for a few
moments —"
"Just now there were three murderers," whispered
one policeman to another: "now there is only one. He is as mad as a
March-hare."
"Then I was decoyed into a deep pit," continued
Markham; "and I escaped through an aperture opening into another pit, with
stone steps to it, in the next house."
The two policemen turned round to conceal their inclination
to laugh; and the Superintendent could scarcely maintain a serious countenance.
"And now will you come with me to Shoreditch Church,
and capture the villains?" cried Markham.
"We had better wait till morning. Pray sit down and
compose yourself. You are wet and covered with mud - you have evidently been
walking a great distance."
"Oh! now I understand the cause of your
hesitation," ejaculated Markham: "you do not believe me - you fancy
that I am labouring under a delusion. I conjure you not to suffer justice to be
defeated by that idea! The tale is strange; and I myself, had it been communicated
to me as it now is to you, should look upon it as improbable. No doubt, too, my
appearance is strange; and my manner may be excited, and my tone wild ;- but, I
swear to you by the great God who hears us, that I am sane - in the possession
of my reason,- although, heaven knows I have this night passed through enough
to unhinge the strongest intellects!"
"Can you lead us to the house where you allege that
these enormities are committed?" demanded the Superintendent, moved by the
solemnity and rationality with which Markham had uttered this last appeal to
him.
"No, I cannot," was the reply: " I had lost
my way amongst those streets with which I was totally unacquainted: the night
was dark -dark as it is now ;- and therefore I could not guide you to
that den of such black atrocities. But, I repeat the murderers left that house
a little after one to commit a deed of sacrilege in Shoreditch Church. You say
that it is now three: perhaps their resurrection-labours are not terminated
yet; and you might then capture them in the midst of then unholy
pursuits."
"And if we do not find that Shoreditch Church. has been
broken open ?" said the Superintendent, "you will admit —"
"Admit that I am mad - that I have deceived you - that
I deserve to be consigned to a lunatic asylum," exclaimed Markham, in a
tone which inspired the Superintendent with confidence.
That officer accordingly gave instructions to four
constables to accompany Markham to Shoreditch Church.
The little party proceeded thither with all possible
expedition; but the clock struck four just as they reached the point of
destination.
They hastily scaled the railings around the burial-ground,
and proceeded to the very door from which the body-snatchers had emerged as
hour previously.
One of the policemen tried the door; and it immediately
yielded to his touch. At the same moment his foot struck against something upon
the top step. He picked it up :- it was a padlock with the semicircular bolt
sawed through.
The policemen and Markham entered the church and the former
commenced a strict search by means of their bull's-eye lanterns.
"There's no doubt that the gentleman was right and all
he said was true," observed one of the officers; " but the birds have
flown - that's clear."
"Well - they must have done their work pretty cleverly
if they haven't left a trace," said another.
"I have heard it stated," remarked Richard
"that resurrection-men are so expert at their calling, that they can defy
the most acute eye to discover the spot upon such they have been
operating."