Piled one upon each other on the
floor, and reaching half way up to the ceiling lay, a decomposing mass
of human remains. Heaped up one upon another, heedlessly tossed into the
disgusting heap any way, lay the gaunt skeletons with pieces of flesh
here and there only adhering to the bones. A steam--a foetid steam rose
up from the dead, and upon the floor was a pool of corruption, creeping
along as the declivities warranted. Eyes, teeth, hands half denuded of
flesh--glistening vermin, shiny and sleek with the luxurious feeding
they there got, slipped glibly in and out of the heaped-up horror. [Illustration: Todd's Victims In The Vaults Of Old St. Dunstan's
Church.] "No more--no more!" cried the secretary. "I sicken," said his friend, "I am faint." Sir Richard Blunt let go the door, and it slammed shut with a hollow
sound. "Thank God!" he said. "For--for what?" gasped Mr. Villimay. "That you and I, my friend, need not look upon this sight again. We are
all sufficient evidence upon our oaths that it is here to see." "Yes--yes." "Come away," said the secretary. "You told me something of what was to
see, Sir Richard Blunt, but my imagination did not picture it to be what
it is." "I told you that likewise, my lord." "You did--you did." With hurried steps they now followed the magistrate; and it was with a
feeling of exquisite relief that they all found themselves, after a few
minutes, fairly in the body of the church, and some distance from that
frightful spectacle they had each thought it to be their duty to look
upon. "Let us go to the vestry," said the secretary, "and take something. I am
sick at heart and stomach both." "And I am everything, and hungry too," cried a voice, and the Lord Mayor
popped his head up from the churchwardens' pew. No one could help laughing at this, although, to tell the truth, those
men, after what they had seen, were in no laughing mood, as the reader
may well imagine. "Is that our friend, the King of the City?" said the secretary. "It is," said Sir Richard. "Well, I must say that he has set a good example of bravery in his
dominions." "He has indeed." "Gentlemen--gentlemen," added the Lord Mayor, as he rolled out of the
churchwardens' pew, "don't think of going into the vestry without me,
for it was I who gave a hint to have refreshments put there, and I have
been dying for some of them for this last half-hour, I assure you." CHAPTER LXVIII. RETURNS TO JOHANNA. We return to Johanna Oakley. "What is the meaning of all this?" said Sweeney Todd, as he sat in his
shop about the hour of twelve on the morning following that upon which
Johanna Oakley and her friend Arabella had concerted so romantic a plan
of operations regarding him. "What is the meaning of all this? Am I
going mad?" Now Todd's question was no doubt a result of some peculiar sensations
that had come over him; but, propounded as it was to silence and to
vacancy, it of course got no answer. A cold perspiration had suddenly
broke out upon his brow, and, for the space of about ten minutes, he was
subject to one of those strange foreshadowings of coming ills to him,
which of late had begun to make his waking hours anything but joyous,
and his dreams hideous. "What can it mean?" he said. "What can it mean?" He wiped his face with a miserable looking handkerchief, and then, with
a deep sigh, he said--

"It is that fiend in the shape of a woman!" No doubt he meant his dear friend, Mrs. Lovett. Alas! what a thorn she
was in the side of Sweeney Todd. How poor a thing, by way of recompense
for the dark and terrible suspicions he had of her, was his heaped up
wealth? Todd--yes, Sweeney Todd, who had waded knee-deep--knee-deep do
we say?--lip-deep in blood for gold, had begun to find that there was
something more precious still which he had bartered for it--peace! That
peace of mind--that sweet serenity of soul, which, like the love of God,
is beautiful, and yet passeth understanding. Yes, Todd was beginning to
find out that he had bartered the jewel for the setting! What a common
mistake. Does not all the world do it? They do; but the difference
between Todd and common people merely was that he played the game with
high stakes. "Yes," added Todd, after a pause, "curses on her, it is that fiend in
the shape of a woman, who

    'Cows my better part of man,'

and she or I must fall. That is settled; yes--she or I. There was a time
when I used to say she and I could not live in the same country; but now
I feel that we cannot both live in the same world. She must go--she must
lapse into the sleep of death." Todd rose, and stalked to and fro in his shop. He felt as if something
was going to happen: that undefinable fidgetty feeling which will attack
all persons at times, came over him, and yet it was not a feeling of
deep apprehension that was at his heart. "Oh," he muttered, "it is the recollection of that dreadful woman--that
fiend, who, with a seeming prescience, knows when there is poison in her
glass, and baffles me. It is the dim and shadowy thought of what I must
do with her that shatters me. If poison will not do the deed, steel or a
bullet must. Ah!" Some one was trying the handle of the shop door, and so timidly was it
tried, that Todd stood still to listen, without saying "Come in," or
otherwise encouraging the visitor. "Who is it?" he gasped. Still the handle of the door-lock only shook. To be sure, it was a
difficult door to open to all who did not know it well. Todd had taken
care of that, for if there was anything more than another which such a
man as he might be fairly enough presumed to dislike, it would be to be
glided in upon by the sudden opening of an easy-going door. "Come in," he now cried. The person without was evidently anxious to obey the invitation, and a
more strenuous effort was made to unfasten the door. It yielded at
length. A young and pretty looking lad, apparently of about thirteen or
fourteen years of age, stood upon the threshold. He and Sweeney Todd
looked at each other in silence for a few moments. If a painter or a
sculptor could have caught them as they stood, and transferred them to
canvas or to marble, he might have called them an idea of Guilt and
Innocence. There was Todd, with evil passions and wickedness written
upon every feature of his face. There was the boy, with the rosy
gentleness and innocence of Heaven upon his brow. God made both these
creatures! It was Todd who broke the silence. A gathering flush was upon
the face of the boy, and he could not speak. "What do you want?" said Todd. He rattled his chair as he spoke, as though he would have said, "It is
not to be shaved." The boy was too much engaged with his own thoughts to
pay much attention to Todd's pantomime. He evidently, though, wished to
say something, which he could not command breath to give utterance to. Like the "Amen" of Macbeth, something he would fain have uttered, seemed
to stick in his throat. "What is it?" again demanded Todd, eagerly. This roused the boy. The boy, do we say.