The prisoner, left to himself, sat down upon his bedstead: andresting his elbows on his knees, and his chin upon his hands,remained in that attitude for hours. It would be hard to say, ofwhat nature his reflections were. They had no distinctness, and,saving for some flashes now and then, no reference to his conditionor the train of circumstances by which it had been brought about.
The cracks in the pavement of his cell, the chinks in the wallwhere stone was joined to stone, the bars in the window, the ironring upon the floor,--such things as these, subsiding strangelyinto one another, and awakening an indescribable kind of interestand amusement, engrossed his whole mind; and although at the bottomof his every thought there was an uneasy sense of guilt, and dreadof death, he felt no more than that vague consciousness of it,which a sleeper has of pain. It pursues him through his dreams,gnaws at the heart of all his fancied pleasures, robs the banquetof its taste, music of its sweetness, makes happiness itselfunhappy, and yet is no bodily sensation, but a phantom withoutshape, or form, or visible presence; pervading everything, buthaving no existence; recognisable everywhere, but nowhere seen, ortouched, or met with face to face, until the sleep is past, andwaking agony returns.
After a long time the door of his cell opened. He looked up; sawthe blind man enter; and relapsed into his former position.
Guided by his breathing, the visitor advanced to where he sat; andstopping beside him, and stretching out his hand to assure himselfthat he was right, remained, for a good space, silent.
"This is bad, Rudge. This is bad," he said at length.
The prisoner shuffled with his feet upon the ground in turning hisbody from him, but made no other answer.
"How were you taken?" he asked. "And where? You never told memore than half your secret. No matter; I know it now. How was it,and where, eh?" he asked again, coming still nearer to him.
"At Chigwell," said the other.
"At Chigwell! How came you there?"
"Because I went there to avoid the man I stumbled on," he answered.
"Because I was chased and driven there, by him and Fate. Because Iwas urged to go there, by something stronger than my own will.
When I found him watching in the house she used to live in, nightafter night, I knew I never could escape him--never! and when Iheard the Bell--"
He shivered; muttered that it was very cold; paced quickly up anddown the narrow cell; and sitting down again, fell into his oldposture.
"You were saying," said the blind man, after another pause, "thatwhen you heard the Bell--"
"Let it be, will you?" he retorted in a hurried voice. "It hangsthere yet."
The blind man turned a wistful and inquisitive face towards him,but he continued to speak, without noticing him.
"I went to Chigwell, in search of the mob. I have been so huntedand beset by this man, that I knew my only hope of safety lay injoining them. They had gone on before; I followed them when itleft off."
"When what left off?"
"The Bell. They had quitted the place. I hoped that some of themmight be still lingering among the ruins, and was searching forthem when I heard--" he drew a long breath, and wiped his foreheadwith his sleeve--"his voice."
"Saying what?"
"No matter what. I don"t know. I was then at the foot of theturret, where I did the--"
"Ay," said the blind man, nodding his head with perfect composure,"I understand."
"I climbed the stair, or so much of it as was left; meaning to hidetill he had gone. But he heard me; and followed almost as soon asI set foot upon the ashes."
"You might have hidden in the wall, and thrown him down, or stabbedhim," said the blind man.
"Might I? Between that man and me, was one who led him on--I sawit, though he did not--and raised above his head a bloody hand. Itwas in the room above that HE and I stood glaring at each other onthe night of the murder, and before he fell he raised his hand likethat, and fixed his eyes on me. I knew the chase would end there."
"You have a strong fancy," said the blind man, with a smile.
"Strengthen yours with blood, and see what it will come to."
He groaned, and rocked himself, and looking up for the first time,said, in a low, hollow voice:
"Eight-and-twenty years! Eight-and-twenty years! He has neverchanged in all that time, never grown older, nor altered in theleast degree. He has been before me in the dark night, and thebroad sunny day; in the twilight, the moonlight, the sunlight, thelight of fire, and lamp, and candle; and in the deepest gloom.
Always the same! In company, in solitude, on land, on shipboard;sometimes leaving me alone for months, and sometimes always withme. I have seen him, at sea, come gliding in the dead of nightalong the bright reflection of the moon in the calm water; and Ihave seen him, on quays and market-places, with his hand uplifted,towering, the centre of a busy crowd, unconscious of the terribleform that had its silent stand among them. Fancy! Are you real?
Am I? Are these iron fetters, riveted on me by the smith"s hammer,or are they fancies I can shatter at a blow?"
The blind man listened in silence.
"Fancy! Do I fancy that I killed him? Do I fancy that as I leftthe chamber where he lay, I saw the face of a man peeping from adark door, who plainly showed me by his fearful looks that hesuspected what I had done? Do I remember that I spoke fairly tohim--that I drew nearer--nearer yet--with the hot knife in mysleeve? Do I fancy how HE died? Did he stagger back into theangle of the wall into which I had hemmed him, and, bleedinginwardly, stand, not fail, a corpse before me? Did I see him, foran instant, as I see you now, erect and on his feet--but dead!"
The blind man, who knew that he had risen, motioned him to sit downagain upon his bedstead; but he took no notice of the gesture.
"It was then I thought, for the first time, of fastening the murderupon him. It was then I dressed him in my clothes, and dragged himdown the back-stairs to the piece of water. Do I rememberlistening to the bubbles that came rising up when I had rolled himin? Do I remember wiping the water from my face, and because thebody splashed it there, in its descent, feeling as if it MUST beblood?