Without aim or object, save the one of endeavouring, by sheer bodily fatigue, to seek repose for the overwrought mind, Learmont walked onwards through the various streets that happened to present themselves at convenient junctures to his notice, and as he walked with a quick step, he muttered to himself the anxious reasoning that was crossing his fevered brain.
“I will never be alone!” he muttered: “never—never. Why should I be alone?—I who am revelling in wealth? From this moment I resolve to cram my saloons. The brilliant decorations of my home shall be admired by all; I will move amidst a throng of youth, beauty, and nobility, as the presiding genius of a place which shall be little short of a fairy palace of romance and beauty. I—I will intrigue with the intriguing—quaff goblets of rich wine with the voluptuous. Ha! Ha!—I will lead a life of enjoyment that shall leave no time for thought. I will have pleasure after pleasure—excitement after excitement, succeeding each other with such rapidity that they shall only occasionally cease when the wearied frame calls loudly for repose, that it may awaken with renovated strength to undergo a routine of new pleasure!—I will never be alone!”
He walked on now for many minutes, only now and then muttering the words “Never alone!” Then a new train of thought seemed to come across his mind, and he whispered:—
“These two men, this Britton and the crafty Gray! they, indeed, are thorns among the flowers with which I would surround myself. If either could but safely destroy the other, I could then find an opportunity of getting rid of the survivor. My deepest hatred light on Gray! May the curses—pshaw! what hoots it that I curse him?—I must have his blood! ’Tis’ he, and he only, who by his craft preserves his own life, and teaches Britton how to preserve his. What devil whispered to the villain to write a confession of his crimes for his own preservation? Time was when a master-spirit such as mine could with small pains rid himself of the base lowly tools with which he built his fortune and his fame. The grave closed over the hateful secrets that embittered the road to power and greatness, leaving that power and greatness, when once achieved, undermined by the black shadows of the past. Unbounded wealth is at my command—a crouching herd at my feet, because I am the master of the yellow dross for which mankind will barter Heaven! And—and yet I—even I am to be haunted by two ruffians, who with a subtlety undreamt of, have hedged themselves in with precautions. By hell, I will not—cannot bear it!—I’ll pluck these papers from their very hearts, if they should hide them there!—I will no longer be scared by this awful phantom of fear that shadows my heart—They shall die!”
CHAPTER XIX.
Learmont’s Adventure.—A Discovery.—The Haunted House.—Exultation, and a Resolution.
In the wild excitement of his passions, Learmont had walked onwards, heedless of whither he was going, and now that he had in some measure found the relief he sought for in fatigue, he glared anxiously round to find if possible what part of the town he had strayed to in his deep abstraction.
The night was very dark, not a star peeped forth from heaven to light with its small twinkling lustre the massive black arch of the firmament. No moon shed its silvery radiance on the gigantic city;—a darkness, so intense that sky, houses, trees—all seemed merged into one chaotic mass.
“Where should I be?” muttered Learmont; “I must have walked far, for I am weary. Ha! Is that the hour?”
The clock of St. Paul’s struck three as he spoke, and from the direction of the sound, Learmont guessed that he was somewhere southward of that edifice.
“Some chance passenger,” he muttered, “will direct me to Westminster; yet I hear no footfall in these silent streets. How still and solemn now is the great city; one might imagine it a vast cemetery, in which the dead alone dwelt.”
He paced slowly down a long straggling street, and his own footsteps were the only sounds that disturbed the solemn stillness that reigned around.
Learmont walked on slowly, for he knew not but he might be in some dangerous quarter of the city, and his suspicions that the locality in which he was did not possess any great claims to fashion or respectability were much increased by a door suddenly opening in a house some dozen yards in advance of him, and a man being flung from it with considerable force into the centre of the street, while a loud voice, exclaimed:—
“Go to the devil, an’ you will. Are we to sit up all night to attend to one sot? No, that will never suit the Old Mitre, an’ there were a round dozen of you, we might think of it.”
“It’s d—damned ill-usage,” remonstrated the man who had been turned out so unceremoniously from what appeared to Learmont a little tavern, and the door of which was immediately flung close, and barred from within.
“That’s the—the way of the world,” remarked the drunken man, as he slowly gathered himself up on his feet, and shook his head with tipsy gravity. “There’s no such thing as a consideration in the world, and the street even is turning round—and round in a most ex—ex—extra—ordinary manner. That’s how I never can get home prop—properly. The streets keep a-moving in that ex—ex—extraordinary manner;—that end comes round to this end—and that’s how I’m led astray. It’s too bad—it is indeed; it’s enough to—to make one weep, it is. But no matter ex—ex—a double extraordinary man, and a greatly injured character.”
The drunkard had evidently reached the sentimental stage of intoxication, and he staggered along weeping and lamenting alternately.
“I may gather from this sot some information of where I am,” thought Learmont, and in an instant he strided after the reeling man.
When he reached him he touched him on the shoulder, and said—
“My friend, can you tell me where I am?”
“Eh?—’pon my w—w—word, that’s a funny question. Why, you—you’ve just been turned out of the Mitre.”
“Pho! Pho!” cried Learmont, impatiently. “Can you tell me what part of the town we are in?”
“The o—open air, of course,” replied the man. “Hurrah! That’s my opinion. My opinion’s hurrah! And all I mean to say is, if somebody else—no, that isn’t it—if I didn’t take somebody else’s job—no, that ain’t it.”
“What do you mean?” said Learmont.
“I’ll do it—I’ll do it, I tell you.”
“Do what?”
“Do what? Come, that’s good of you. You know what. All I mean to say is, that if somebody else is to do it, why I am sure nobody—no, that isn’t it either. How very ex—ex—extraordinary!”
“Idiot!” exclaimed Learmont, striding away; but the man called after him, and his voice echoed through the deserted street, as he said—
“Don’t be—be—offended. I’ll do it, I tell you. No, no—nonsense, now, I know you—mind I—know you: it’s only a mur—murder! Ah! ah!”
Learmont paused in astonishment, not altogether unmingled with dismay, at these words and he was by the man’s side again in a moment.
“You know me?“ he said.
“Yes, yes, I believe you,” replied, the man. “I’ll do it.”
“What can this mean?” thought Learmont; then he said, aloud—
“Who am I—you say you know me?”
“You—you didn’t think it,” said the man, with much drunken cunning;