"It was
obliquity, and if you scream or make the least alarm, I'll skin you, and
strew this kitchen with your mangled remains!" Mrs. Ragg sank into a chair with a melo-dramatic groan, that would have
made her fortune over the water in domestic tragedy if she could have
done it so naturally. Todd kept his eye upon her. That basilisk-like
eye, which had fascinated the good woman often, and this time it acted
as a kind of spell, for truly might he have said, or rather might some
one have said for him,

    "He held her with his glittering eye." Todd's first care now was to get between Mrs. Ragg and the kitchen door,
lest upon some sudden impulse she should rise and flee. Then he folded
his arms, and looked at her calmly, and with such a devilish smile as
might have become Mephistopheles himself, while contemplating the ruin
of a soul. He took from his pocket a razor. "Mercy," gasped Mrs. Ragg. "Where is Tobias?" [Illustration: Todd Horrifies Mrs. Ragg.] "Up stairs. Back room, second floor, looking into the garden." "Alone?" "No, Minna Grey is with him." "Listen to me. If you stir from here until I come to you again, I will
not only murder you, but Tobias likewise, and every one whom I meet with
in this house. You know me, and can come to some opinion as to whether
or not I am a man likely to keep my word. Remain where you are; move
not, speak not, and all will be well." Mrs. Ragg slowly slid off her chair, and fell to the floor of the
kitchen, where she lay, in what seemed a swoon. "That will do as well," said Todd as he glanced at her, "and yet as I
return." He made a movement with his hand across his throat to indicate
what he would do, and then feeling assured that he had little or,
indeed, no opposition to expect in the house, he left the kitchen, and
walked up stairs. When he reached the top of the kitchen stairs he paused to listen. All
was very still in the house. "'Tis well," he said "tis well. This deed of blood shall be done, and
long before it can be thought that it was I who struck the blow, I shall
be gone." Alas! After passing through so much! After being persued in so almost a
miraculous manner from the murderous intentions of Todd, backed by the
cupidity of Fogg, and his subordinate Watson, was poor Tobias yet to die
a terrible death as a victim to the cruel passions of his relentless
persecutor? No, we will not yet believe that such is to be the fate of
poor honest Tobias, although at the present time, his prospects look
gloomy. Todd may, and no doubt has taken as worthy lives, but we will
hope that the hand of Providence will prevent him from taking this one. He reached the landing of the first floor, and he paused to listen
again. He thought this time, that he heard the faint sound of voices
above, but he was not quite sure. Otherwise all was quiet. This was a
critical situation for Todd. If any one, who was a painter of pictures
or of morals had but seen him, Sweeney Todd, as he there stood, they
would no longer have doubted either that there was a devil, or that some
persons in this world, were actuated by a devilish fiend. He looked the
incarnate fiend!--the Mephistopheles of the imagination, such as he is
painted by the German enthusiast. His laugh too? Was not that satanic? He set himself to listen to the voices that he heard in that quiet rooms
and the sounds, holy and full of affection as they were, awakened no
chord of answering feeling, in that bold, bad man's breast. He stood
apart from human nature, a solitary being. A wreck upon the ocean of
society

    "None loving, and by none beloved." Who would be Sweeney Todd, for all the wealth, real or fabled, of a
million Californias? "He is here," he said, "I know his voice. Tobias is here. Ah! he
mentions the name of God. Ha! He is more fitting to go to that heaven he
can talk of so glibly, but there is none. There is none! No, no! all
that is a fable." Of course Todd could not believe in a divinity of goodness and mercy. If
he had, what on earth could have saved him from absolute madness? CHAPTER LXXXIII. TOBIAS IN JEOPARDY. "And so you do love me, Minna?" said Tobias. How his voice shook like a reed swayed by the wind, and yet what a world
of melody was in it. "Can you ask me to say yes?" was the reply of the fair young creature by
his side. "Can you ask me to say yes, Tobias?" "It seems to me," said Tobias, "as though it would be such a joy to hear
you say so, Minna, and yet I will not ask you." "How well you have got, Tobias. Your cheek has got its old colour back
again. The colour it had long before you knew there was such a man as
Sweeney Todd in the world. Your eyes are bright too, and your voice has
its old pleasant sound." "Used it to be pleasant to you, Minna?" She held up her hand, and shook her head laughingly. "No questions, Tobias! No questions. I will confess nothing." "Stop!" said Tobias, as he put himself into an attitude of listening,
"what was that, I thought I heard something? It was like a suppressed
growl. I wish the colonel would come home. Did you not hear it, Minna?" Minna had heard it, but she did not say she had. "Where did it come from, Tobias?" "From the stair-head, Minna." "Oh, it is some accidental noise, such as is common to all houses, and
such as always defy conjecture and explanation, and being nothing and
meaning nothing, always comes to nothing. Yet I will go and see. Perhaps
a door has been left open, and is banging to and fro by the wind, and if
so it will only vex you to hear it again, Tobias." It was Todd, who upon hearing the soft and tender speeches from the
young lovers, had not been able to suppress a growl, and now that he had
heard Minna Grey talk of coming to look what it was, he felt the
necessity of instantly concealing himself somewhere. It was not likely she would come down the stairs, so Todd adopted an
original mode of keeping himself out of sight. He descended steps sufficient, that by laying at full length along them,
his head did not reach the top, and in the darkness he then considered
that he should be quite safe from the casual glance, that in all
likelihood, merely to satisfy Tobias, Minna would give outside the room
door. Todd thought by her manner she had heard nothing. "No, no, Minna," said Tobias, "there is no occasion. It is nothing, I
dare say, and I don't like you to be out of my sight a moment." "It is only a moment." She rose, and proceeded to the door. An unknown feeling of dread, she knew not why, was at the heart of
Minna. Certainly the slight sound she had heard, and that too in the
house of Colonel Jeffery, was not sufficient to warrant such a feeling,
and yet there, at her heart, it sat brooding. She stood for a moment at the door. It was only for a moment. "How foolish I am," she thought, and then she passed out on to the
landing, where she stood for a moment glancing round her. "It is nothing, Minna," called out Tobias, "or shall I try and come. I
feel quite strong enough to do so." "Oh, no--no! It is nothing."