"Don't do me any harm—don't hurt me," said the old woman; "and I will do any thing you want of me."
"Answer me," cried Markham: "that corpse in the other room——"
"Murdered by my son," replied the hag.
"And the clothes? where are the clothes? They may contain some papers which may throw a light upon the name and residence of your victim."
"Follow me—I will show you."
The old woman turned and walked slowly out of the room. Markham went after her; for he thought that if he could discover who the unfortunate person was that had met his death in that accursed dwelling, he might be enabled to relieve his family at least from the horrors of suspense, although he should be the bearer of fatal news indeed.
The Mummy opened the door of a cupboard formed beneath the staircase, and holding forward the light, pointed to some clothes which hung upon a nail inside.
"There—take them yourself if you want them," said the old woman; "I won't touch them."
With these words she drew back, but still held the candle in such a way as to throw the light into the closet.
Markham stepped forward to reach the clothes, and, in extending his hand to take them from the peg, he advanced one of his feet upon the floor of the closet.
A trap-door instantly gave way beneath his foot: he lost his balance, and fell precipitately into a subterranean excavation.
The trap-door, which moved with a spring, closed by itself above his head, and he heard the triumphant cackling laugh of the old hag, as she fastened it with a large iron bolt.
The Mummy then went and seated herself by the corpse in the front room; and, while she rocked backwards and forwards in her chair, she crooned the following song:—
THE BODY-SNATCHER'S SONG.
In the churchyard the body is laid,
There they inter the beautiful maid:
"Earth to earth" is the solemn sound!
Over the sod where their daughter sleeps,
The father prays, and the mother weeps:
"Ashes to ashes" echoes around!
Come with the axe, and come with the spade;
Come where the beautiful virgin's laid:
Earth from earth must we take back now!
The sod is damp, and the grave is cold:
Lay the white corpse on the dark black mould,
That the pale moonbeam may kiss its brow!
Throw back the earth, and heap up the clay;
This cold white corpse we will bear away,
Now that the moonlight waxes dim;
For the student doth his knife prepare
To hack all over this form so fair,
And sever the virgin limb from limb!
At morn the mother will come to pray
Over the grave where her child she lay,
And freshest flowers thereon will spread:
And on that spot will she kneel and weep,
Nor dream that we have disturbed the sleep
Of her who lay in that narrow bed.
We must leave the Mummy singing her horrible staves, and accompany the body-snatchers in their proceedings at Shoreditch Church.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE BODY-SNATCHERS.
THE Resurrection Man, the Cracksman, and the Buffer hastened rapidly along the narrow lanes and filthy alleys leading towards Shoreditch Church. They threaded their way in silence, through the jet-black darkness of the night, and without once hesitating as to the particular turnings which they were to follow. Those men were as familiar with that neighbourhood as a person can be with the rooms and passages in his own house.
At length the body-snatchers reached the low wall surmounted with a high railing which encloses Shoreditch churchyard. They were now at the back part of that burial ground, in a narrow and deserted street, whose dark and lonely appearance tended to aid their designs upon an edifice situated in one of the most populous districts in all London.
For some minutes before their arrival an individual, enveloped in a long cloak, was walking up and down beneath the shadow of the wall.
This was the surgeon, whose thirst after science had called into action the energies of the body-snatchers that night.
The Cracksman advanced first, and ascertained that the surgeon had already arrived, and that the coast was otherwise clear.
He then whistled in a low and peculiar manner; and his two confederates came up.
"You have got all your tools?" said the surgeon in a hasty whisper.
"Every one that we require," answered the Resurrection Man.
"For opening a vault inside the church, mind?" added the surgeon, interrogatively.
"You show us the vault, sir, and we'll soon have out the body," said the Resurrection Man.
"All right," whispered the surgeon; "and my own carriage will be in this street at three precisely. We shall have plenty of time—there's no one stirring till five, and its dark till seven."
The surgeon and the body-snatchers then scaled the railing, and in a few moments stood in the churchyard.
The Resurrection Man addressed himself to his two confederates and the surgeon, and said, "Do you lie snug under the wall here while I go forward and see how we must manage the door." With these words he crept stealthily along, amidst the tomb-stones, towards the church.
The surgeon and the Cracksman seated themselves upon a grave close to the wall; and the Buffer threw himself flat upon his stomach, with his ear towards the ground. He remained in this position for some minutes, and then uttered a species of low growl as if he were answering some signal which caught his ears alone.
"The skeleton-keys won't open the side-door, the Resurrection Man says," whispered the Buffer, raising his head towards the surgeon and the Cracksman.
He then laid his ear close to the ground once more, and resumed his listening posture.
In a few minutes he again replied to a signal; and this time his answer was conveyed by means of a short sharp whistle.
"It appears there is a bolt; and it will take a quarter of an hour to saw through the padlock that holds it," observed the Buffer in a whisper.
Nearly twenty minutes elapsed after this announcement. The surgeon's teeth chattered with the intense cold; and he could not altogether subdue certain feelings of horror at the idea of the business which had brought him thither. The almost mute correspondence which those two men were enabled to carry on together—the methodical precision with which they performed their avocations—and the coolness they exhibited in undertaking a sacrilegious task, made a powerful impression upon his mind. He shuddered from head to foot:—his feelings of aversion were the same as he would have experienced had a loathsome reptile crawled over his naked flesh.
"It's all right now!" suddenly exclaimed the Buffer, rising from the ground. "Come along."
The surgeon and the Cracksman followed the Buffer to the southern side of the church where there was a flight of steps leading up to a side-door in a species of lobby, or lodge. This door was open; and the Resurrection Man was standing inside the lodge.
As