We feel that we ought not entirely to take leave of that unfortunate, who failed in escaping with Tobias Ragg, from Mr. Fogg's establishment at Peckham, without a passing notice. It will be recollected that Tobias had enough to do to get away himself, and that he was in such a state of mind that it was quite a matter of new mechanical movement of his limbs that enabled him to fly from the madhouse. Horror of the place, and dread of the people who called it theirs, had lighted up the glare of a partial insanity in his brain, and he flew to London, we admit, without casting another thought upon the wretched creature who had fallen in the attempt to free herself from those fiends in human shape who made a frightful speculation in the misery of their fellow creatures. The alarm was already spread in the madhouse, and Mr. Fogg himself arrived at the spot where the poor creature lay stunned and wounded by her fall. "Watson! Watson!" he cried.
"Here," said that official, as he presented himself.
"Take this carcase up, Watson. I'm afraid Todd's boy is gone."
"Ha! ha!"
"Why do you laugh?"
"Why where's the odds if he has. I tell you what it is, Fogg, I haven't been here so long without knowing what's what. If that boy ever recovers his senses enough to tell a rational tale, I'll eat him. However, I'll soon go and hunt him up. We'll have him again."
"Well, Watson, you give me hopes, for you have upon two different occasions brought back runaways. Bring the woman in and—and, Watson?
"Aye, aye."
"I think I would put her in No. 10."
"Ho! ho!—No. 10. Then she's booked. Well, well, come on Fogg, come on, it's all one. I suppose the story will be 'An attempt to escape owing to too much indulgence;' and some hints consequent on that, and then brought back to her own warm comfortable bed, where she went asleep so comfortably that we all thought she was as happy as an Emperor, and then—"
"She never woke again," put in Fogg. "But in this case you are wrong, Watson. It is true that twice or thrice I have thought, for the look of the thing, it would be desirable to have an inquest upon somebody, but in this case I will not. The well is not full!"
"Full?"
"No, I say the well is not full, Watson; and it tells no tales."
"It would hold a hundred bodies one upon another yet," said Watson, "and tell no tales. Ha! ha!"
"Good!"
"It is good. She is to go there, is she? well, so be it."
Watson carried the miserable female in his arms to the house.
"By-the-bye, it is a second thought," he said, "about No. 10."
"Yes, yes, there's no occasion. Watson, could you not at once—eh? It is a good hour. Could you not go right through the house, my good Watson, and at once—eh?"
"At once what?"
"Oh, you know. Ha! ha! You are not the dull fellow at comprehending a meaning you would fain make out; but you, Watson—you understand me well enough, you know you do. We understand each other, and always shall."
"I hope so, but if you want anything done I'll trouble you to speak out. What do you mean by 'couldn't you go through the house at once—eh?'"
"Pho! pho! Put her down the well at once. Humanity calls upon us to do it. Why should she awaken to a sense of her disappointment, Watson? Put her down at once, and she will never awaken at all to a sense of anything."
"Very well. Come on, business is business."
"You—you don't want me?"
"Don't I," said Watson, bending his shaggy brows upon him, and looking extra hideous on account of a large black patch over one eye, which he bore as a relict of his encounter with Tobias. "Don't I? Hark you, Fogg; if you won't come and help me to do it, you shall have it to do by yourself, without me at all."
"Why—why, Watson, Watson. This language—"
"Is nothing new, Fogg."
"Well, well, come on.—Come on—if it must be so, it must.—I—I will hold a lantern for you, of course; and you know, Watson, I make things easy to you, in the shape of salary, and all that sort of thing."
Watson made no reply to all this, but went through the house to the back part of the grounds, carrying with him his insensible burthen, and Fogg followed him, trembling in every limb. The fact was, that he, Fogg, had not for some time had a refresher in the shape of some brandy. The old deserted well to which they were bound was at a distance of about fifty yards from the back of the house; towards it the athletic Watson hastened with speed, closely followed by Fogg, who was truly one of those who did not mind holding a candle to the devil. The walls of that building were high, and it was not likely that any intruder from the outside could see what was going on, so Watson took no precaution.—The well was reached, and Fogg cried to him—
"Now—now—quick about it, lest she recovers."
Another moment and she would have been gone in her insensibility, but as if Fogg's words were prophetic, she did recover, and clinging convulsively to Watson, she shrieked—
"Mercy! mercy! Oh, have mercy upon me! Help! help!"
"Ah, she recovers!" cried Fogg, "I was afraid of that. Throw her in. Throw her in, Watson."
"Confound her!"
"Why don't you throw her in?"
The Murder At The Well By Fogg And Watson.
The Murder At The Well By Fogg And Watson.
"She clings to me like a vice. I cannot—Give me a knife, Fogg. You will find one in my coat pocket—a knife—a knife!"
"Mercy! mercy! Have mercy upon me! No—no—no,—Help! Oh God! God!"
"The knife! The knife, I say!"
"Here, here," cried Fogg, as he hastily took it from Watson's pocket and opened it. "Here! Finish her, and quickly too, Watson!"
The scene that followed is too horrible for description. The hands of the wretched victim were hacked from their hold by Watson, and in the course of another minute, with one last appalling shriek, down she went like a flash of lightning to the bottom of the well.
"Gone!" said Watson.
Another shriek and Fogg, even, stopped his ears, so appalling was that cry, coming as it did so strangely from the bottom of the well.
"Throw something upon her," said Fogg. "Here's a brick—"
"Bah!" cried Watson, "bah! there's no occasion to throw anything on her. She'll soon get sick of such squealing."
Another shriek, mingled with a strange frothy cry, as though some one had managed to utter it under water, arose. The perspiration stood in large drops upon the face of Fogg.—He seized the brick he had spoken of, and cast it into the well. All was still as the grave before it reached the bottom, and then he wiped his face and looked at Watson.
"This is the worst job," he said, "that ever we have had—"
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