"Who's there? Who are you?" cried Todd. "The deuce!" said a voice, from the adjoining cell. "Sold at last, after all my trouble. Confound you, why didn't you speak before, and save me the last hour's work?"
"What do you mean?" cried Todd. "I am a desperate man. Do not tamper with me. Do you belong to the prison, or do you not?"
"I belong to the prison! I should think not. Don't you?"
"Oh, no—no—no—no."
"Why, you don't mean to say that you are a prisoner?"
"I am, indeed, and condemned to die."
"All's right then. Bravo! This is capital. I thought I was in the end cell, do you know, and that by working through the wall by the assistance of Providence always—Bah! I can't get out of the old trade. I mean to say, that I thought I was working through a wall that would have taken me into one of the corridors of Newgate, and then there would have been a chance of getting off, you know."
"I do not know, and did not know," said Todd; "but if there be really any chance of escape, I am a desperate man, and will risk anything for it. Only say that you will help me."
"Help you? Of course I will. Do you think I am in love with these cold walls? No, I will get a light in a moment, and we can then have a look at each other. Are you in fetters?"
"I was, but I have a file, and have succeeded in freeing myself from them completely. Are you?"
"Yes, but I have muffled them with some pieces of my clothing that I have torn up for the purpose, and please the Lord they will make no noise."
Todd was rather amazed at the religious expressions of the other prisoner; but he forbore to make any remark concerning them, and as something had been said about getting a light, he resolved to wait patiently until it was procured, when he would be able to see who it was that chance had so very strangely thrown him into companionship with.
"You see," added the other prisoner, "a religious lady left me some tracts, and as I told her they did not allow light here, she was kind enough to smuggle me in some phosphorous matches, in case in the night I should wish to read."
"Very kind of her," said Todd.
"Oh, very. Let us praise the—Bother, I shall never get out of the habit of chaunting, I do believe."
In a moment, now, a faint blue light illumed the cell adjoining to Todd's, and as the religious lady had been kind enough to bring some little wax ends of candles, the prisoner lit one, and placing it upon the ledge left by the displaced brick in the wall, he put his face close to it, and looked at Todd.
Todd did the same thing, and looked at him.
"Humph," said the prisoner. "They are not going to hang you for your beauty, whoever you are, my friend."
"Nor you," said Todd, who was a little stung by this cool remark, "for I must say a more villanous looking countenance than yours I never saw in all my life."
"Then you certainly never looked in a glass."
"Hark you, my friend," said Todd. "If we are to aid each other in getting out of Newgate, it will not be by railing at each other through a square hole in the wall of our cells. We had better leave all remarks about our looks to other folks, and at once set to work about what is much more important, namely, breaking our way out of this most detestable of all places."
"Truly," said the other; "you speak wisdom, and the Lord—Pho! The deuce take it, when shall I get rid of the cant of the conventicle? My dear sir, you see before you a man who has been a great victim."
"What is your name?"
"Lupin they used to call me. The Reverend Josiah Lupin."
"Ah," said Todd. "I heard something of your case. I believe you murdered a woman, did you not?"
"Why, my friend," said Mrs. Oakley's old acquaintance, for indeed it was no other, "I don't mind confessing to you, that a woman met with a slight accident at my place, and they say I did it. But now that I have been so candid, pray who are you?"
"They call me Todd."
The Reverend Mr. Lupin screwed up his mouth, and whistled.
"Humph," he said. "The religious lady only this morning told me all about you. You used to polish the people off in your barber's shop, and then make them into pork pies, I believe?"
"Ha! ha!" said Todd.
"And you had a charming assistant in the shape of a lady, named Lovett, I have been informed, who used to help you to scrape the bones of the poor devils who had only just slipped in for a shave, and by no means expected such a scrape."
"Ha! ha!" said Todd.
"Stop a bit," said Mr. Lupin, "don't come that sort of laugh again. It don't sound at all pleasant. Well, I think we may manage to get out of Newgate, do you know, by a little hard work, if you are willing; but mind you, I don't want to be made a pork or a veal pie of, if you please."
"I never ate them myself," said Todd, "so there is no temptation; but I sincerely hope, my friend, that you do not believe one word of the many calumnies that have been heaped upon my character?"
"Oh, dear no; and you, too, are well aware that I am the most falsely accused and innocent clergyman that ever lived."
"Perfectly."
"My dear, sir, you are a very reasonable man, and I don't see any reason on earth that we should not be capital friends from this moment. Just help me to move another of these stones and I shall be able to creep through the opening into your cell."
Todd very kindly assisted the Reverend Mr. Lupin, and in the course of a few minutes, another of these large square blocks of stone that formed the wall of the cell being removed, he was able to creep through the aperture with the assistance of Todd.
"All's right," said Lupin, as he shook himself. "And now, my new friend, I will borrow the same file with which you released yourself from your fetters, and git rid of mine."
"Here it is," said Todd; "you work upon one leg, and I will work upon the other, for I have two files here, although one of them is a little blunted by the work it has already done. Yet it will help, and time is everything."
"It is," said Lupin. "Work away, for I am not able to think of anything until I am free of these confounded irons."
They worked in real earnest, and to such purpose, that in a much less space of time than anybody would have thought it possible to accomplish the process in, the fetters of Mr. Lupin dropped from him, and, like Todd, he stood so far free from restraint.
"Now," he said, "I have some firs............