What a pleasure it would be to me to hold that
girl by the throat, who so hoodwinked me as to impose herself upon me
for a boy, and hear and see her choking. How I should like to see the
blood of Sir Richard Blunt weltering forth while his colour faded, and
he expired gradually!" Todd ground his teeth together in his rage. "Yes," he added, while he moved with difficulty under the weight of his
iron. "Yes, I have bidden adieu to wealth and the power that wealth
would have given me. I have carried on my life of crimes for nothing,
and in blood I have waded to accomplish only this world of danger that
now surrounds me--to give to myself the poor privilege of suicide; but
yet how fain I would live for vengeance!" His chains rattled upon his limbs. "Yes, for revenge. I would fain live for revenge. There are some five or
six that I would like to kill! Yes, and I would gloat over their
death-agonies, and shriek in their ears, 'I did it! I, Sweeney Todd, did
it!'" The fetters entangled about his legs, and threw him heavily to the floor
of the cell. He raved and cursed frightfully, until he was too much exhausted to
continue such a course, and then he sat upon the floor, and with one of
the files he began working away assiduously at the iron, in order to
free himself from those clogs to his movements. As he so worked, he heard the prison clock strike ten. "Ten," he said. "Ten already. Of a truth I did not think it was so late. I must be quick. Others have escaped from Newgate, and why should not I? The attempt will and shall be made; and who knows but that it may be
successful? A man may do much when he is resolved that he will do all he
wishes or die." Todd filed away at the chains. "Who will stop me," he said, "with the feeling that will possess me? Who
will say, 'I will stop this man, or he shall kill me?' No one--no one!" The file was a good one, and it bit fairly into the iron. In the course
of a quarter of an hour Todd had one wrist at liberty, and that was a
great thing. He was tired, however, of the comparatively slow progress
of the file, and he made a great effort to break the chains from his
ankles; but he only bruised himself in the attempt to do so without
succeeding. With a feeling of exhaustion, he paused. "Oh, that I could find an opportunity of exerting so much force against
those whom I hate!" he said. At this moment he fancied he heard a slight noise not far from him, and
every faculty was immediately strained to assist in listening for a
repetition of it. It did not come again then. "It must have been imagination," he said, "or some sound far off in the
prison conveyed by echoes to this spot. I will not suffer myself to be
alarmed or turned from my purpose. It is nothing--nothing. I will use
the file again." He commenced now upon the other wrist, and by the little experience he
had gathered from his practice at the one which he had already filed in
two, he got on more quickly with this one. He found that a long light
movement of the file did more work than a rapid grating process. In much
less time, then, this other wrist manacle was off, and he could lift up
both his arm in freedom. "This is something," he said, "Nay, it is much, very much indeed. I feel
it, and accept it as a kind of earnest of success. Where is the
man--where are the two or three men, that will dare to stand in my
desperate way, when I have one of these files in each hand, and are free
from fetters. They will need be mad to do it. Such an amount of zeal is
not to be found. No, they will step aside and let me pass." It now became a matter of great importance with him, to get the other
two fetters that bound his ankles undone. He felt as if he should go
mad, if he did not quickly release himself from them now. Sitting upon the floor of the cell, he set to work; but he found that
the file he had been using did not bite very well. The work it had done
already had dulled its powers; but the other was fresh and keen, and
with it he made great progress. The left-hand shackle was entirely removed, and now only by his right
ankle was he connected with that hundredweight of iron, which held him
to the ground. "I shall be free!" he muttered. "I shall be free! Did they think to hold
me with these chains? Ha! ha! No. It may be, that there is a dark spirit
of evil that aids men, such as I am; and if it be so, I will consent to
be wholly his, if--"

Todd started, for the same noise that had before come upon his ears, now
attracted him. It was plainer though than before; and at the moment he
thought that it must be in his cell. A cry of terror rose to his lips,
but he smothered it in the utterance, and bent again all his faculties
to listen. The sound did not now pass away like an echo as it had done before, but
it went on steadily, and he could trace it as localising itself against
one of the walls of the cell. It was a profound mystery. He could not make out what it meant. It was a
strange dull scraping noise. At times he thought it was some animal in
the cell--a rat, probably; but then the sound was too continuous, and
although he stamped once, and said 'Hush!' several times, it steadily
continued. The darkness in the cell was now so intense, that it was in vain to
attempt to pierce it. Any straining of the eyes only peopled the
palpable black atmosphere with all sorts of strange shapes, conjured up
by the imagination; so Todd was glad to close his eyes after a few
moments' experience of that character. "I will know what this is," he said. "I must know what this is, and I
will know!" He held out his arms, and he slowly advanced towards the side of the
cell from whence the sound came. "Speak," he said, "if you are mortal, speak. If immortal, I fear you
not. I am now past all such terrors. You can but kill me." His hands touched the cold stone wall; and then he felt it from the
floor upwards, but nothing but the chill surface of the stones was
perceptible; and yet the scraping noise continued, and at last he felt
convinced that it came from the other side of the wall. Now he did not know what to think, for he had no means of knowing what
was upon the other side of that wall. It might be a corridor of the
prison. It might be a room belonging to one of the officials, who was
about some work that, if explained, would not appear singular at all. He placed his ear to the exact spot from whence the noise came, and he
listened attentively. As he so listened, Todd began to have other notions about that noise,
and for more than once the square block of stone, against which his ear
reposed, shook in its place. "It must be a cell like this," he said, "that is on the other side of
the wall, and that, no doubt, is some prisoner at work, trying to effect
his escape. If so, it is fortunate. He must be a bold man, and we can
help each other." Still Todd hesitated what he should do, notwithstanding the hypothesis
regarding the noise he heard appeared so very probable.