muns!' murmured Miggs--'he promised--'

'Promised! Well, and I'll keep my promise,' answered Simon, testily. 'I
mean to provide for you, don't I? Stand up!'

'Where am I to go? What is to become of me after my actions of this
night!' cried Miggs. 'What resting-places now remains but in the silent
tombses!'

'I wish you was in the silent tombses, I do,' cried Mr Tappertit, 'and
boxed up tight, in a good strong one. Here,' he cried to one of the
bystanders, in whose ear he whispered for a moment: 'Take her off, will
you. You understand where?'

The fellow nodded; and taking her in his arms, notwithstanding her
broken protestations, and her struggles (which latter species of
opposition, involving scratches, was much more difficult of resistance),
carried her away. They who were in the house poured out into the street;
the locksmith was taken to the head of the crowd, and required to walk
between his two conductors; the whole body was put in rapid motion;
and without any shouts or noise they bore down straight on Newgate, and
halted in a dense mass before the prison-gate.

Chapter 64

Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a great
cry as soon as they were ranged before the jail, and demanded to speak
to the governor. This visit was not wholly unexpected, for his house,
which fronted the street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket-gate of
the prison was closed up, and at no loophole or grating was any person
to be seen. Before they had repeated their summons many times, a man
appeared upon the roof of the governor's house, and asked what it was
they wanted.

Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. It
being now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons in the throng
were not aware that any one had come to answer them, and continued their
clamour until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the whole
concourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed before any one voice could be
heard with tolerable distinctness; during which interval the figure
remained perched alone, against the summer-evening sky, looking down
into the troubled street.

'Are you,' said Hugh at length, 'Mr Akerman, the head jailer here?'

'Of course he is, brother,' whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without minding
him, took his answer from the man himself.

'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'

'You have got some friends of ours in your custody, master.'

'I have a good many people in my custody.' He g