The Mysteries of London (Vol. 1-4). George W. M. Reynolds
to raise the stone; but it seemed fixed in its setting, although it trembled as she touched it.
Still she was not disheartened. She scrutinized the boards in the immediate vicinity of the stone; but her search was unavailing. No evidence of a concealed lock—no trace of a secret spring met her eyes. Yet she was confident that she was on the right scent. As she turned herself round, while crawling upon her hands and knees the better to pursue her examination, her rustling silk dress disturbed a portion of the masonry in the chimney, where a grate had once been fixed.
A brick fell out.
The heart of the Rattlesnake now beat quickly.
She approached the lantern to the cavity left by the dislodged brick; and at the bottom of the recess she espied a small iron ring.
She pulled it without hesitation; the ring yielded to her touch, and drew out a thick wire to the distance of nearly a foot.
The Rattlesnake now tried once more to raise the stone, and succeeded. The stone was fixed at one end with stout iron hinges to one of the beams that supported the floor, and thus opened like a trap-door.
When raised, it disclosed a narrow flight of stone steps, at the bottom of which the most perfect obscurity reigned.
The Rattlesnake now paused—in alarm.
She longed to penetrate into those mysterious depths—she panted to dive into that subterranean darkness; but she was afraid.
All those terrible reminiscences which were associated with her knowledge of the Resurrection Man, rushed to her mind; and she trembled to descend into the vault at her feet, for fear she should never return.
These terrors were too much for her. She, moreover, recalled to mind that nearly an hour had now elapsed since the Resurrection Man and the Buffer had departed; and she knew not how speedily they might conclude their task. Besides, some unforeseen accident or sudden interruption might compel them to beat a retreat homewards; and she knew full well that if she were discovered there, death would be her portion.
She accordingly determined to postpone any further examination into the mysteries of that house until some further occasion.
Having closed the stone trap-door and replaced the brick in the wall of the chimney, she hastened back to the upper floor, where she speedily retired to bed.
We may as well observe that during the time she was in the lower room, no sound of a human tongue met her ears.
But perhaps the victim slept!
CHAPTER CVIII.
THE EXHUMATION.
THE night was fine—frosty—and bright with the lustre of a lovely moon.
Even the chimneys and gables of the squalid houses of Globe Town appeared to bathe their heads in that flood of silver light.
The Resurrection Man and the Buffer pursued their way towards the cemetery.
For some minutes they preserved a profound silence: at length the Buffer exclaimed, "I only hope, Tony, that this business won't turn out as bad as the job with young Markham three nights ago."
"Why should it?" demanded the Resurrection Man, in a gruff tone.
"Well, I don't know why," answered the Buffer. "P'rhaps, after all, it was just as well that feller escaped as he did. We might have swung for it."
"Escape!" muttered the Resurrection Man, grinding his teeth savagely. "Yes—he did escape then; but I haven't done with him yet. He shall not get off so easy another time."
"I wonder who those chaps was that come up so sudden?" observed the Buffer, after a pause.
"Friends of his, no doubt," answered Tidkins. "Most likely he suspected a trap, or thought he would be on the right side. But the night was so plaguy dark, and the whole thing was so sudden, it was impossible to form an idea of who the two strangers might be."
"One on 'em was precious strong, I know," said the Buffer. "But, for my part, I think you'd better leave the young feller alone in future. It's no good standing the chance of getting scragged for mere wengeance. I can't understand that sort of thing. If you like to crack his crib for him and hive the swag, I'm your man; but I'll have no more of a business that's all danger and no profit."
"Well, well, as you like," said the Resurrection Man, impatiently. "Here we are; so look alive."
They were now under the wall of the cemetery.
The Buffer clambered to the top of the wall, which was not very high; and the Resurrection Man handed him the implements and tools, which he dropped cautiously upon the ground inside the enclosure.
He then helped his companion upon the wall; and in another moment they stood together within the cemetery.
"Are you sure you can find the way to the right grave?" demanded the Buffer in a whisper.
"Don't be afraid," was the reply: "I could go straight up to it blindfold."
They then shouldered their implements, and the Resurrection Man led the way to the spot where Mrs. Smith's anonymous lodger had been buried.
"I'm afeard the ground's precious hard," observed the Buffer, when he and his companion had satisfied themselves by a cautious glance around that no one was watching their movements.
The eyes of these men had become so habituated to the obscurity of night, in consequence of the frequency with which they pursued their avocations during the darkness which cradled others to rest, that they were possessed of the visual acuteness generally ascribed to the cat.
"We'll soon turn it up, let it be as hard as it will," said the Resurrection Man, in answer to his comrade's remark.
Then, suiting the action to the word, he began his operations in the following manner.
He measured a distance of five paces from the head of the grave. At the point thus marked he took a long iron rod and drove it in an oblique direction through the ground towards one end of the coffin. So accurate were his calculations relative to the precise spot in which the coffin was embedded in the earth, that the iron rod struck against it the very first time he thus sounded the soil.
"All right," he whispered to the Buffer.
He then took a spade and began to break up the earth just at that spot where the end of the iron rod peeped out of the ground.
"Not so hard as you thought," he observed. "The fact is, the whole burial-place is so mixed up with human remains, that the clay is too greasy to freeze very easy."
"I s'pose that's it," said the Buffer.
The Resurrection Man worked for about ten minutes with a skill and an effect that would have astonished even Jones the grave-digger himself, had he been there to see. He then resigned the spade to the Buffer, who took his turn with equal ardour and ability.
When his ten minutes elapsed, the resurrectionists regaled themselves each with a dram from Tidkins' flask; and this individual then applied himself once more to the work in hand. When he was wearied, the Buffer relieved him; and thus did they fairly divide the toil until the excavation of the ground was completed.
This portion of the task was finished in about forty minutes. An oblique channel, about ten feet long, and three feet square at the mouth, and decreasing only in length, as it verged towards the head of the coffin at the bottom, was now formed.
The Resurrection Man provided himself with a stout chisel, the handle of which was covered with leather, and with a mallet, the ends of which were also protected with pieces of the same