CHAPTER CXXXIV.

THE ESCAPE, AND THE RETREAT IN CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD.

While Mr. Lupin talked, he did not lose time, but he was working away at

the lock of the door at the end of the passage. After a few moments

there was a crackling sound, and then the lock yielded to the exertion

of Mr. Lupin, and went back into its home. The door, with a wheezing

sound, slowly opened.

"All's right," whispered Lupin. "The less we say now, Todd, the better,

for our voices will go farther now that we shall be clear of this

passage. Come on. Follow me!"

They both emerged into the night air; and crouching down, Lupin ran

along the little yard in which they were, and which was not above

half-a-dozen yards across. He paused at a door, and then suddenly

starting away from it, he muttered--

"It is not this one. Ah! this is it! Stand quite close up against the

wall, and then there will be the less chance of any one seeing you. I

must work away at this door."

"Where does it lead to?" whispered Todd.

"To the chapel."

Todd screwed himself up into the smallest space that he possibly could

against the wall, close to the door, while Lupin tried to open it. That

door for more than ten minutes baffled him. Probably that fact was owing

in some degree to the circumstance of his being in the dark, for of

course, before emerging from the vaulted passage, he had thought it

prudent to extinguish the little light he had.

"It baffles you," said Todd, in a voice of great anxiety.

"As yet, yes. No. It is open."

Todd breathed more freely.

"Come in," said Lupin. "Come in. We have done wonders as yet, my friend,

and we will do wonders yet, I think, if Providence only looks with a

gracious--There I go again. When shall I forget that chapel, I wonder?"

"It don't matter," said Todd. "I used to find a little religion answer

very well myself."

"Not a doubt of it. Now, then, that the door is fast, we may muster up a

light again."

With the aid of one of his matches, Lupin again illuminated the little

wax end of the candle, and then Todd found that he was in a small kind

of vestibule from which a green baize door led directly into the chapel.

In fact, that was the entrance by which the lower class of offenders

confined in Newgate were brought to the chapel on Sundays. The little

building looked much larger by the faint light of that one candle than

it really was, and Todd glared around him with a feeling of terror, as

he had not felt since he had left his cell. Perhaps, after all, a good

deal of that was owing to the low temperature of the chapel, that lent a

chill to his system.

"Look at that seat," said Lupin, pointing to one. "Do you know what it

is?"

"Only a seat," said Todd. "Is there anything particular in it?"

"Nothing, except the kind of interest it might have for you, as being

the one upon which the condemned prisoners sit, on the Sunday previous

to their execution, that is all."

Todd turned aside with a shudder.

"Enough," he said. "Enough. That is enough. Let us get on, and not waste

time in idle talking about such idle matters as these. I do not feel

very well."

"And I," said Lupin, "would give a few bright pieces out of those

hundreds that you have hidden, for a glass of brandy. But that's not to

be thought of now. This is a door that leads from the chapel to the

Governor's house, through which the parson, and the Governor and

Sheriffs come on the occasion of Sunday service here. It is by that we

must attempt an escape in this place."

Sweeney Todd, and Mr. Lupin looked like two spectres, as they crept

noiselessly through the chapel of Newgate; but Lupin appeared to know

perfectly well the route which it was necessary for him to take, and he

soon went up three small steps, and applied his ear to the panel of a

door to listen, as he said--

"Through here lies our route."

"Is all still?" said Todd.

"Quite. I don't believe, except ourselves, there is any one up and about

in Newgate except a couple of lazy fellows in the vestibule; but we are

too far off them to be in any danger of their overhearing us. This door

will not give any trouble. Ah!"

"What is the matter?"

"It is bolted on the other side."

"Then we are foiled?"

"Not at all. It will take us a little time to unbolt it, that's all.

Hand me the chisel."

Todd handed it to him; and then holding the light for Lupin, the latter

set to work upon the panelling of the door, to cut away sufficient of it

to enable him to get his head through, to draw back the bolts, one of

which was at the top of the door and another at the bottom of it.

The door, though, was not built for strength, for it was scarcely

imagined that it would ever be attacked, so that the panelling was only

of an ordinary character; and as the chisel was a good one, and Mr.

Lupin was tolerably expert in its use, the chips from the wood soon

began noiselessly to fall about him. He worked in a circle, so that when

he should get fairly through the panel, there would be quite space

enough for him to get his arm through, and unfasten both the bolts; and

this he completed in about ten minutes.

"I should never have got on without you," said Todd. "The only notion I

had of the affair, was to try and fight my way out of the prison, and if

I fell in doing so, I was no worse off than I should be on Monday

morning--or, indeed, rather better, for I could not endure the agony of

waiting for death."

"They would not have killed you."

"They must."

"Nay, they will go through fire and water here, and suffer anything,

rather than that a man should escape the gallows. They would have flung

themselves upon you, and overpowered you by numbers, and on Monday

morning, if you had a breath of life left in you, you would have been

dragged out to death."

Todd shuddered.

"And you so innocent, too," added Lupin. "But it is the innocent that in

this world, verily, are chastened alway."

"You are getting into your old habit of preaching again," said Todd,

roughly.

"So I am. I am much obliged to you, my friend, to put me in mind of it.

Very much obliged. I was for a moment preaching; but here is the door

open, and now I beg that you will tread as though you trod upon a mine,

for we do not know what persons in this portion of this confounded

building may be upon the alert."

"Oh, that we were only in the open air!" said Todd.

"Hush! hush!"

The villain Lupin, almost as bad in his way as Todd was in his, now

shaded the little light with his hands, and crept on slowly and

cautiously, until he reached the staircase, which was nicely empanelled,

and up that he slowly took his way. Before he got to the top of it, he

blew out the light, and waiting there until Todd was close to him, he

said, in the smallest possible whisper--

"Follow me, and be careful, I am afraid the light might gleam through

some key-hole, and betray us. Come on, and recollect that a slip or a

stumble may be fatal. Think that the rope is about your neck."

"I will," said Todd. "I will. I almost seem to feel it actually. Oh,

yes, I will be very careful."

"Hush! hush! Are you mad to go on talking so?"

Todd said no more, and Lupin crept on until he got right to the top of

the stairs. Then holding by a balustrade that was continued along the

landing, he reached the head of another flight of steps, which led

directly down to the hall or passage of the Governor's house. Lupin was

terribly afraid that Todd would come upon these second stairs at

unawares, and stumble down some of them, so he waited at the head of

them, until Todd touched him, and then he whispered the one word,

"Stairs."

"Yes," replied Todd, and then Lupin commenced the descent, followed by

his trembling companion, and for the matter of that, Lupin himself shook

now like an aspen leaf.

The steps were fourteen in number, and then, by the feel of a mat at the

foot of them, Lupin was satisfied that he had actually gained the hall

of the Governor's house. Todd was close behind him.

"Stop!" whispered Lupin, and Todd stopped as suddenly as though he had

been some piece of machinery that could be in a moment arrested in its

progress.

Lupin well knew now that without a light it would be folly to attempt

opening the door of the Governor's house, which, as a matter of course,

was well secured; and very reluctantly he lit another match, and ignited

the wax candle-end again. He placed Todd in such a position on the mat

at the foot of the stairs, that his bulky tall form acted as a screen

against the rays of the light ascending the staircase, and then, with

something of his old nervousness and abject fear of manner and

expression, he narrowly scrutinized the door.

"Curses on all these precautions!" he muttered. "We may be detained here

until morning."

In good truth, the door of the Governor's house was very well fastened

up, and Mr. Lupin might well feel a little staggered at the sight of it.

A chain that was up across it, he easily removed, and the bolts offered

no obstacles; but what was the most serious consisted of a small, but

exquisitely made lock that was on the door, and the key of which, no

doubt, at such an hour was under the Governor's pillow.

Todd at that moment would have given anything to be able just to say--

"How are you getting on?" but in such a place, with, for all he knew to

the contrary, the Governor of Newgate within a dozen yards of him, he

dared not open his lips.

And now Lupin brought all his old skill to bear upon that one little

lock upon the Governor's door, and yet it resisted him. One five

minutes' attempt to pick it was to him pretty conclusive evidence that

it was not to be done.

He had the chisel in his pocket, and in despair he inserted it between

the door and the post. It broke short off by the handle. Lupin uttered a

groan, which was echoed by Todd, and then they both stood glaring at

each other in solemn silence. Todd crept towards Lupin, and leaning

forward he whispered faintly--

"It can't be done?"

"No," said Lupin, "that lock stops us."

"Lost--lost!" said Todd. "We are lost, then?"

"Hush. Let me think. The key of this lock is with the Governor, of

course. Now, Todd, you are a man of strong nerves, you know, or else it

would have been quite impossible for you to have gone through life in

the way you have done. What do you say to going and trying to get the

key?"

"I--I?"

"Yes, to be sure. I have, up to this moment, you know, done all the

work, and if this lock had not baffled me, I would have done the

remainder cheerfully; but could you not take one of these files--the end

of it is very sharp--and persuade the Governor to give up the key?"

"Kill him, you mean?"

"You may call it killing."

"If I thought it could be done with anything like a certainty of result,

I would make no more of the life of the Governor than--than--"

Todd was at a loss for a simile, and Lupin helped him out of the

difficulty by saying--

"Giving a man a clean shave for one penny, or eating a veal pie."

Todd nodded.

"Now, hark you," continued Lupin, speaking in the same very low whisper,

indeed, that he had conducted the conversation in. "It is quite a

maddening thing, you see, to find that there is nothing between us and

liberty but this door. Every moment is of the greatest possible

importance. Will you do it?"

"Are you mad?"

"No. I am quite sane, I confess, though that I have not the pluck to do

it. You ought to be a man of courage. What is it to you, if you were to

murder everybody in this house, so that you got this door open? That is

the great object, the only object; and to you, you know, three or four

more deaths will not make much consequence."

"My friend," said Todd, with a sickly smile, "I am afraid you believe

the calumnies that have been heaped upon my innocent head. But, if

nothing can be done, but what you say, I will make the attempt. There

are two files, though, and they are equally sharp. Do you take one, and

I will take the other."

"You want me with you?"

"I do, most, surely."

"Well--well; if it must be so, it must. I will come. Let us set about it

at once, and--"

Before Mr. Lupin could say another word, there came a sharp rap at the

door from the outside with the knocker; and so sudden and so utterly

unexpected was the sound at such an hour, that Lupin and Todd fell on

each other in their hurry to escape, they knew not where.