Pumpkins' Glow: 200+ Eerie Tales for Halloween. Джек Лондон

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      The captain ordered the boat to proceed up the river towards the Temple stairs, where Hector's master had expressed his intention of proceeding, and, when the faithful animal saw the direction in which they were going, he lay down in the bottom of the boat perfectly satisfied, and gave himself up to that repose, of which he was evidently so much in need.

      It cannot be said that Colonel Jeffery suspected that anything of a very serious nature had happened; indeed, their principal anticipation, when they came to talk it over, consisted in the probability that Thornhill had, with an impetuosity of character they knew very well he possessed, interfered to redress what he considered some street grievance, and had got himself into the custody of the civil power in consequence.

      'Of course,' said the captain, 'Master Hector would view that as a very serious affair, and finding himself denied access to his master, see he has come off to us, which was certainly the most prudent thing he could do, and I should not be at all surprised if he takes us to the door of some watch-house, where we shall find our friend snug enough.'

      The tide was running up; and that Thornhill had not saved the turn of it, by dropping down earlier to the vessel, was one of the things that surprised the captain. However, they got up quickly, and as at that hour there was not much on the river to impede their progress, and as at that time the Thames was not a thoroughfare for little stinking steamboats, they soon reached the ancient Temple stairs.

      The dog, who had until then seemed to be asleep, suddenly sprung up, and seizing the hat again in his mouth, rushed again on shore, and was closely followed by the captain and colonel.

      He led them through the Temple with great rapidity, pursuing with admirable tact the precise path his master had taken towards the entrance to the Temple in Fleet-street, opposite Chancery-lane. Darting across the road then, he stopped with a low growl at the shop of Sweeney Todd - a proceeding which very much surprised those who followed him, and caused them to pause to hold a consultation ere they proceeded further. While this was proceeding Todd suddenly opened the door, and aimed a blow at the dog with an iron bar, but the latter dexterously avoided it, and, but that the door was suddenly closed again, he would have made Sweeney Todd regret such an interference.

      'We must enquire into this,' said the captain; 'there seems to be mutual ill-will between that man and the dog.'

      They both tried to enter the barber's shop, but it was fast on the inside; and after repeated knockings, Todd called from within, saying, 'I won't open the door while that dog is there. He is mad, or has a spite against me - I don't know nor care which - it's a fact, that's all I am aware of.'

      'I will undertake,' said the captain, 'that the dog shall do you no harm; but open the door, for in we must come, and will.'

      'I will take your promise,' said Sweeney Todd; 'but mind you keep it, or I shall protect myself and take the creature's life; so, if you value it, you had better hold it fast.'

      The captain pacified Hector as well as he could, and likewise tied one end of a silk handkerchief round his neck, and held the other firmly in his grasp; after which Todd, who seemed to have some means from within of seeing what was going on, opened his door and admitted his visitors.

      'Well, gentlemen, shaved, or cut, or dressed, I am at your service; which shall I begin with?'

      The dog never took his eye off Todd, but kept up a low growl from the first moment of his entrance.

      'It's rather a remarkable circumstance,' said the captain, 'but this is a very sagacious dog, you see, and he belongs to a friend of ours, who has most unaccountably disappeared.'

      'Has he, really?' said Todd. 'Tobias! Tobias!'

      'Yes, sir.'

      'Run to Mr Philip's, in Cateaton-street, and get me six-penny-worth of preserved figs, and don't say that I don't give you the money this time when you go on a message. I think I did before, but you swallowed it; and when you come back, just please remember the insight into business I gave you yesterday.'

      'Yes,' said the boy, with a shudder, for he had a great horror of Sweeney Todd, as well he might, after the severe discipline he had received at his hands, and away he went.

      'Well, gentlemen,' said Todd, 'what is it you require of me?'

      'We want to know if anyone having the appearance of an officer in the navy came to your house?'

      'Yes - a rather good-looking man, weatherbeaten, with a bright blue eye, and rather fair hair.'

      'Yes, yes! the same.'

      'Oh! to be sure, he came here, and I shaved him and polished him off'

      'What do you mean by polishing him off?'

      'Brushing him up a bit, and making him tidy: he said he had got somewhere to go in the city, and asked me the address of a Mr Oakley, a spectacle-maker. I gave it him, and then he went away; but as I was standing at my door about five minutes afterwards, it seemed to me, as well as I could see the distance, that he got into some row near the market.'

      'Did this dog come with him?'

      'A dog came with him, but whether it was that dog or not I don't know.'

      'And that's all you know of him?'

      'You never spoke a truer word in your life,' said Sweeney Todd, as he diligently stropped a razor upon his great, horny hand.

      This seemed something like a complete fix; and the captain looked at Colonel Jeffery, and the colonel at the captain, for some moments, in complete silence. At length the latter said,-

      'It's a very extraordinary thing that the dog should come here if he missed his master somewhere else. I never heard of such a thing.'

      'Nor I either,' said Todd. 'It is extraordinary; so extraordinary that, if I had not seen it, I would not have believed. I dare say you will find him in the next watch-house.'

      The dog had watched the countenance of all parties during this brief dialogue, and twice or thrice he had interrupted it by a strange howling cry.

      'I'll tell you what it is,' said the barber; 'if that beast stays here, I'll be the death of him. I hate dogs - detest them; and I tell you, as I told you before, if you value him at all keep him away from me.

      'You say you directed the person you describe to us where to find a spectacle-maker named Oakley. We happen to know that he was going in search of such a person, and, as he had property of value about him, we will go there and ascertain if he reached his destination.'

      'It is in Fore-street - a little shop with two windows; you cannot miss it.'

      The dog, when he saw they were about to leave, grew furious; and it was with the greatest difficulty they succeeded, by main force, in getting him out of the shop, and dragging him some short distance with them, but then he contrived to get free of the handkerchief that held him, and darting back, he sat down at Sweeney Todd's door, howling most piteously.

      They had no resource but to leave him, intending fully to call as they came back from Mr Oakley's; and, as they looked behind them, they saw that Hector was collecting a crowd round the barber's door, and it was a singular thing to see a number of persons surrounding the dog, while he, to all appearance, appeared to be actually making efforts to explain something to the assemblage. They walked on until they reached the spectacle-maker's, СКАЧАТЬ