It was for an hour or more quite undisturbed by any
images calculated to give him uneasiness; and then he began--for there
was some noise in the house--to dream that he was hunted through the
streets of London by an infuriate mob; and by one of those changes
incidental to dreams, when the reason sleeps and imagination ascends the
mental throne, he thought that the heads of all the mob were armed with
horns, like those of cattle, and that they come raging after him with a
determination to toss him. This was not a dream upon which any one was likely to be very still for
any length of time, and Todd groaned in his sleep, and tossed his arms
to and fro, and more than once uttered the word--"Mercy!--mercy!" Suddenly he started wide awake as a knock came at the door and roused
him. Todd blessed that knock at the moment; for by waking him it had
rescued him from the dream of terrors that had been vexing his brain. He sat up in bed, and for a moment or two could hardly collect his
scattered senses sufficiently to assure himself that it was all a dream,
and that he was in the lodging-house in Norfolk Street; but the brain
rapidly recovers from such temporary confusions; and Todd, with a long
breath of immense relief, gasped out--

"It was, after all, but a dream--only a dream! Oh, God! but it was
horrible!" He fell back upon the pillow again; but sleep did not again come to him,
and he began to feel a vague kind of curiosity to know who it was that
had knocked at the door; and yet, he told himself, that it could not
matter to him, for that in a house like that, of course, there must be
plenty of people coming and going, and that, although the persons who
kept it might control noises within the house, they could not possibly
have any influence upon the knocker. "Oh, it's all right," said Todd. "It's all right. I will sleep again--I
must sleep again; for it yet wants hours and hours to the night, when I
may, at least, make the attempt to get off from--from England for ever!" A faint sort of doze--it could not be called a sleep--was coming over
Todd, when he suddenly heard the sound of voices; and he was startled
wide awake by hearing his own name pronounced. Yes, he clearly heard
some one say--"Todd!" In a moment he sat up in bed, and intently listened. He held his breath,
and he shook again, as his imagination began to picture to him a
thousand dangers. There were footsteps upon the staircase, and in a few moments he heard
persons go into the next room--that is to say, the front one to that in
which he lay, the room that he had paid for a few weeks' occupation of,
and which was only divided from that in which he lay by a pair of
folding-doors, that he knew were just upon the latch, and might, at any
moment, be opened to discover him. He then heard a female voice say--

"I do wish you would be quiet, Mr. Ben." "Ah," said another voice, "keep him in order, Julia, for he has been
quite raving about your beauty as we came along the street, I can tell
you. Do you think the servant will be able to find your father?" "Oh yes, Sir Richard. If ma were at home she could have said at once
where he was; but Martha will find him, I dare say." Todd threw the bed-clothes right over his head. It was no other than Sir
Richard Blunt who was in the front-room of that diabolical
lodging-house, and Todd looked upon himself as all but in custody. His
sense of hearing seemed to be preternaturally acute, and although the
bed-clothes covered up his ears, and he could not be said to be exactly
in his usual state, inasmuch as terror had half deprived him of his
reasoning powers, yet he heard plainly, and with what might be called a
perfect distinctness, every word that was spoken in the front room. Perhaps, even in the condemned cell of Newgate, Todd did not suffer such
terrors as he was now assailed with in that lodging, where he thought he
was so safe, and which he had, as he fancied, managed so cleverly. "Will you be quiet, Ben!" said the girl's voice again. "Make him--make him, Julia," said Sir Richard. "Lor bless your little bits of eyes," said Ben. "Do now come and sit in
my lap, and I'll tell you such a lively story of how the leopard we have
got at the Tower lost a bit off the end of his tail?" "I don't want to hear it." "You don't want to hear it? Come--come, my lambkin of a Julia--when
shall we be married? Oh, do name the day your Ben will be done for for
life. I want it over." "Well, I'm sure," said Julia, "if you think you will be done for, you
had better not think of it any more, Mr. Benjamin." "It won't bear thinking of, my dear. It's like a cold bath in January:
you had better shut yer eyes and tumble in." "Upon my word, Ben," said Sir Richard, laughing, "you are anything but
gallant; and if I were Julia, I would not have you." "Not have me? Lord, yes, she'll have me. Only look at me." "Ah," said Julia, "you think, because you are a great monster of a
fellow, that anybody would have you; but I can tell you that a husband
half your size would be just as well, and I only wonder, after you have
made all the neighbours laugh at me, that I have a word to say to such a
mountain of a man, that I do, you wretch!" "Laugh!" cried Ben, "Why, my duck, what do they laugh at? I should like
to catch them laughing." "Why, you know, you wretch, that that day it rained as if cats and dogs
were coming down, you took me up as if I had been a baby, you did, and
carried me home, and me with a jug of porter in my right hand, and the
change out of a shilling in my left, so that I could not help myself a
bit, and all the street laughing. Oh, I hate you!" "She hates me!" said Ben. "Oh!" "But she don't mean it, Ben," said Sir Richard. "Do you think she doesn't, sir?" "I am sure of it. Do you, now, Julia?" "Yes, Sir Richard, indeed I do, really now, for he is quite a horrid
monster, and I only wonder they don't put him in one of the cages at the
Tower along with the other wild beasts, and make a show of him. That's
all that he is fit for." "Oh, you aggravating darling," said Ben, making a dart at Julia, and
catching her up in his arms as you would some little child. "How can you
go on so to your Ben?" "Murder!" cried Julia. "Oh, if you are going to have a fight for it," said Sir Richard, "I will
go and wait down stairs, Julia." Bang came a knock at the street-door. "Oh, Ben, there's ma or pa," said Julia. "Let me down directly. Do
Ben--oh, pray do. Let me down, Ben." "Do yer love your Ben?" "Anything you like, only let me down." "Very good. There yer is, then, agin on yer little mites of feet. Lor
bless you, Sir Richard, that girl loves the very ground as I walks on,
she does, and she has comed over me with her fascinations in such a way
as never was known. Ain't she a nice 'un?--sleek and shiny, with a
capital mane. But you should see her at feeding-time, Sir Richard, how
nice she does it--quite delicate and pretty; and you should see her--"

The door of the room opened, and Hardman, the officer, made his
appearance.