The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 359: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Look at this—look at this! I distrust you all the more when you talk as you do now, and I tell you that if I have any of your nonsense, I will pretty soon settle you. You mean something, I know, by the twinkle of your eye. I have watched you before, and I know you.” “Now, really, this is too bad,” said Lupin, as he wiped his face with a remarkably old handkerchief; “this is too bad, Jane. If I am kind and civil to you, that don’t suit; and if I am rough and rather stern, you fly out at that too. What am I to do? Will nothing please you?” “Bah!” said Jane. “Hold your nonsense. How much money am I to have when I have finished the brandy? That is the question 33 now. “Will three guineas be enough, Jane, just for the present occasion?” “No, I must have five, or if you don’t produce them, I’ll make you.” “You shall have them, Jane. You see how complying I am to you. But won’t you give me a drop of the brandy? You don’t mean to take it all?” “Yes I do. It’s only half a pint, and what’s that? You can drink some of what you said you had in the place. I didn’t go out to buy for you. Besides, I won’t trust it a moment out of my hands. You would put something in it before I could wink.” “Really, really! What a strange woman. But won’t you have a glass, Jane, to drink it out of? Let me get you a glass now?” “No, you would put something in that too. Oh, I am up to your tricks, I am, old boy. You won’t get the better of me. Very good brandy it is, too. Ah! strong, rather.” Jane took a hearty pull at the bottle, so hearty a one that two thirds of the mixture vanished, and then with her hand on the neck of it, she sat glaring at Lupin, who was on the opposite side of the table, with an awfully satanic grin upon his ugly features. “Tt has an odd taste.” “An odd taste?” cried Lupin. “It’s a capital thing that you bought it yourself, and kept your hand over the bottle. I’m very glad of that, old woman.” “But I feel odd—I—I—ain’t the thing. I don’t feel very well, Lupin.” “Ha, ha, ha!” “|—I feel as if I were dying. I—I don’t see things very clearly. I am ill—ill. Oh, what is this? Something is amiss. Mercy, mercy!” “Ha, ha, ha!” “]—I— shall fall. Help! The room swims round with me. I am poisoned. I know I am. Mercy! help! murder! Oh, spare me.” “Ha, ha, ha!” Lupin rose and went round the table. He caught hold of the wretched woman by the head, and applying his mouth close to her ear, he said— “Jane! There was something in the bottle, and I intend to cut your throat. I hope the knife you have got with you has a good edge to it?” She tried to scream, but an indistinct, strange, stifled cry only came from her lips. She tried to get up, but her limbs refused their office. The powerful narcotic had taken effect, and she fell forward, her head striking the table heavily, and upsetting the bottle with the remainder of the drugged brandy in it as she did so. “Done!” said Lupin. “Done at last. Oh, how I have watched for such an opportunity as this. How often I have pleased myself with the idea of meeting her in some lonely place when she was off her guard, and killing her, but I never thought that anything could happen half so lucky as this. Let me think. I am quite alone in this building, or as good as alone, for Mrs. Oakley sleeps soundly. I can easily drag the dead body down stairs, and place it in one of the vaults underneath the chapel, to which I have the key. I will wrench open some coffin if that be all, and cram her in on the top of the dead there previously. Ah, that will do, and then I defy any circumstances to find me out. How safe a Mur—I mean a death this will be to be sure. How very—very safe.” Mrs. Oakley shook in every limb, but she kept her eyes steadfastly fixed at the small hole in the canvas, through which she could see into the room, and by a horrible species of fascination, she felt that if she had ever so much wished to do so, she could not then have withdrawn it. No! she was, as it were, condemned as a fiat of destiny, as a punishment for her weak and criminal credulity regarding that man, to be a witness to the dreadful deed he proposed committing, within the sphere of her observation. It was dreadful. It was truly horrible. But it was not now by any means to be avoided. Lupin disappeared for a few seconds into a room where he usually himself slept. From thence he returned with a wash-hand basin in his hand, which he placed upon the floor. He then fumbled about the clothing of his wife until he found the knife that she had twice so threateningly exhibited to him. He held it up to the light and narrowly scrutinised it. “Tt will do I think,” he said. He tried its keenness upon the edge of the sole of his shoe, and he was satisfied that it had been well prepared for mischief. “Tt will do well,” he said. “Well, nothing can be better. From this night I shall be free from the fears that have haunted me night and day for so long. This woman is the only person in all London who really knows me, and who has it in her power to destroy all my prospects. When she is gone, I shall be perfectly easy and safe, and surely never was such a deed as this done with so much positive safety.” Mrs. Oakley felt sickened at what she saw, but still she looked upon it with that same species of horrible fascination which it is said —and said truly, too—prevents the victim of a serpents glittering eye from escaping the jaws of the destroyer. She saw it all. She did not move—she did not scream—she did not weep—but as if frozen to the spot, she, with a statuesque calmness, looked upon that most CORniclooo S CO)