Immediately beneath the parlour, where a portion of the cellar went, there was a quantity of old lumber. Perhaps if that lumber had been looked very carefully over, among it there might have been found some fragments of old, and some of new coffins from St. Dunstan's; for with the rich, who had vaults of their own, it was the arrogant fashion to adorn the last sad and narrow home of humanity with silver plates and nails; and Todd had despoiled the grave of some of those costly trappings. Upon the heap of rubbish he scrambled, and that just enabled him comfortably to reach the floor of that parlour. That portion of the floor went under a cupboard in one corner, and in the floor of it three or four coarse round holes had been drilled with a centre-bit. Todd had had his own motives for drilling those holes in the cupboard floor.
He now put his finger through one of the holes, and when he did so, he gave a chuckle of delight, for he was convinced that the contents of that cupboard had not been in any way interfered with; and that, as a consequence, he should find no difficulty in firing the house completely.
"So," he said, "this is the cleverness of your much-vaunted Sir Richard Blunt. He has left a cupboard as crammed with combustible materials as it well can be, to the mercy of the first accident that may set fire to them; and now the accident has come. Ha!"
Again Todd listened attentively, and was still further satisfied that all was profoundly still in the parlour, although he heard the racket and the banging of doors in the upper part of the house.
"This is good," said Todd. "This is capital. All is well now. The fire will have made most excellent progress before they will discover it, and I will warrant that if once it takes a firm hold of the wood-work of this old house, it is not a trifle that will stop its roaring progress."
With this, Todd ignited one of his matches and thrust it alight through one of the holes in the floor of the cupboard.
A slight cracking noise ensued immediately.
"That will do," said Todd, and he withdrew the match and cast it upon the ground. The crackling noise continued. He turned and fled from the place with precipitation.
In the lower portion of that cupboard there was a quantity of hay, upon which oil and turpentine had been poured liberally. High up upon a shelf was a wooden bowl, with eight pounds of gunpowder in it, and Todd did not know a moment when the flames might reach it, when a terrific explosion would be sure to ensue.
"It is done now," he said. "It is done, and they do not know it. More revenge—more revenge! I shall have more revenge now, and there will be more death."
He knew that there was only one thing that could by any possibility prevent the gunpowder in the wooden bowl from becoming speedily ignited, and that that would be in consequence of the hay being packed too close to do more than smoulder for a little time before bursting into a flame; but that it must and would do so eventually, there could be no possible doubt, and it was in that hearty conviction that Sweeney Todd now most fully gloried.
And now, as he had done before, he kept his arms outstretched before him to prevent him from injuring himself against any of the walls or the abrupt turnings in the passages between his own house and old St. Dunstan's. He stooped, likewise, in order that he might not strike his head against the roof at in places where it was very low, and rough, and rugged.
Once only Todd got a little bewildered, and did not well know his way, and then he ignited one of the matches, and by its small light he saw in a moment which way he was to go.
"All is well," he said, and he rushed on; but yet he began to be a little surprised that he heard no noise from the house—no sound of the explosion; and inclining his ear to the ground, he stopped in one of the old vaults to listen.
A low moaning sound came upon his ears like the muttering of distant thunder, and then a report as though some heavy piece of timber had fallen from a great height to the earth. He fancied that the vault in which he was shook a little, and in terror he rushed forward. The gunpowder had exploded in the cupboard, and Todd's imagination was left to revel in the thought of the mischief which it had done to the house and to all within it.
In five minutes more he reached the foot of the little flight of stone-steps that led to the church. All was profoundly dark still, as he thought; but he had not got up above six of those steps when he became conscious that the light of early dawn had already found its way through the windows of the church, and was making everything within it dimly visible. Todd recoiled at this. He and daylight were decidedly not upon good terms with each other by any means.
"It is morning—it is morning!" he exclaimed. "What will become of me now? It is light."
He staggered right back into the vaults again, and there gave himself to painful thought for awhile; as he did so, he heard loud shouts in the streets—shouts that awakened echoes in the old church; and if anything could have given to Todd, at such a time as that, very great satisfaction, it was to hear that those shouts were all commingled with the one prevailing cry of—"Fire—fire—fire!" That was a joy, indeed, to him.
"It burns—it burns!" he said; "but I am here a prisoner; I dare not go out into the daylight; but the old house, with all that it contains, is wrapped in flames, and that is much—much! It is now everything. Oh, that I could hear the cries of those who find themselves wrapped up in the unappeasable element, and have no means of escape! They would, indeed, be music to my ears."
This state of mental exultation passed away very quickly, as it was sure to do, and gave place to the most lively fears for his own personal safety; for, after all, that was the great thing with Todd—at least it was while any portion of his deep revenges remained yet to be accomplished.
"What shall I do?" That was the question that he kept repeating to himself. "What shall I do?" He advanced now right up the steps into the body of the church. There, at least, he knew that he was safe for the present; and as he stood and listened, he thought that in the bustle and in the confusion that men's minds were in regarding the fire, he might emerge from the church and no one notice him, and fairly get away without observation. If he only got a few streets off it would be sufficient, and he should be able to tell himself that he had indeed and in truth escaped.
With these thoughts and feelings, he approached the church door.
The nearer he got to the old doors of St. Dunstan, the more appallingly and distinctly there came upon his ears the cries and the shouts of the people who were hurrying to the fire, and he muttered to himself—
"Ah, it must be blazing briskly now—very briskly. It must be quite a sight to the whole of London to see the old den burning so bravely."
An engine came rattling on, and with a roar and a crash went past the church door.
"Capital!" said Todd. "Upon my word this is capital!"
Another engine, with the horses at a mad gallop, went by, and Todd quite rubbed his hands at the idea of the scene of confusion that he had by his own unaided efforts succeed in making in old Fleet Street.
"They did not think," he said, "when they clo............