style="font-size:15px;"> Deborah nodded. "That it was, and what you'd have done when you was a scrubby thing. Don't bolt your food, but make every bit 'elp you to 'ealth and long living. You won't 'ave gormandising when we've got the laundry, I can tell you."
Next day Aaron went off in the afternoon to Charing Cross Hospital, after holding a conversation with a broker who had agreed to buy the derelict furniture. The shop, being empty, was supposed to be closed, but from force of habit Bart took down the shutters and lurked disconsolately behind the bare counter. Several old customers who had not heard of the sale entered, and were disappointed when they learned that Aaron was leaving. Their lamentations made Bart quite low-spirited. However, he was polite to all, but his manners broke down when a Hindoo entered to sell boot-laces. "I ain't got nothing to sell, and don't want to buy nohow," said Bart, violently.
The man did not move, but stood impassively in the doorway like a bronze statue. He wore a dirty red turban carelessly wound round his small head, an unclean blouse which had once been white, circled by a yellow handkerchief of some coarse stuff, dark blue trousers and slippers with curled-up toes on naked feet. His eyes were black and sparkling and he had a well-trimmed moustache which contrasted oddly with his shabby attire. "Hokar is poor: Hokar need money," he whined in a monotone, but with his eyes glancing restlessly round the shop. "Give Hokar – give," and he held out the laces.
"Don't want any, I tell you," shouted Bart, tartly. "I'll call a peeler if you don't git."
"Ho! ho! who stole the donkey?" cried a shrill voice at the door, and from behind the hawker was poked a touzelled curly head, and a grinning face which sadly needed washing. "You leave this cove alone, won't y? He's a pal o' mine. D'y see?"
"You git along with your pal then," cried Bart, indignantly. "If he don't understand King's English, you do, Tray."
Tray darted into the middle of the shop and made a face at the indignant shopman by putting his fingers in his mouth to widen it, and pulling down his eyes. Hokar never smiled, but showed no disposition to move. Bart, angered at this blocking up the doorway, and by Tray's war dance, jumped the counter. He aimed a blow at the guttersnipe's head, but missed it and fell full length. The next moment Tray was dancing on his body with his tongue out derisively. Then Hokar gave a weird smile. "Kalee!" he said to himself. "Kalee!"
How the scene would have ended it is impossible to say, but while Bart strove to rise and overturn Tray, Aaron walked in past the Indian. "What's this?" he asked sharply. Tray stopped his dancing on Bart's prostrate body and gave a shrill whistle by placing two dirty fingers in his mouth. Then he darted between Norman's legs and made off. Hokar stood staring at the bookseller, and after a pause pointed with his finger. "One – eye," he said calmly, "no good!"
Aaron was about to inquire what he meant by this insult, when the Indian walked to the counter and placed something thereon, after which he moved away, and his voice was heard dying away down the street. "Hokar is poor – Hokar need money. Hokar, Christian."
"What's this?" demanded Norman, again assisting Bart roughly to his feet.
"Blest if I know," replied Tawsey, staring; "they're mad, I think," and he related the incoming of the Indian and the street arab. "As for that Tray," said he, growling, "I'll punch his blooming 'ead when I meets him agin, dancing on me – yah. Allays meddlin' that brat, jus' as he wos when Mr. Beecot was smashed."
"You saw that accident?" asked his master, fixing his one eye on him.
"Yuss," said Bart, slowly, "I did, but Deborah she told me to say nothink. Mr. Beecot was smashed, and his friend, the cold eye-glarsed gent, pulled him from under the wheels of that there machine with Tray to help him, and between 'em they carried him to the pavement."
"Humph!" said Aaron, resting his chin on his hand and speaking more to himself than to his assistant, "so Tray was on the spot. Humph!" Bart, having brushed himself, moved behind the counter and took up what Hokar had left. "Why, it's brown sugar!" he exclaimed, touching it with his tongue, "coarse brown sugar – a handful." He stretched out his palm heaped with the sugar to his master. "What do that furrein pusson mean by leaving dirt about?"
"I don't know, nor do I care," snapped Aaron, who appeared to be out of temper. "Throw it away!" which Bart did, after grumbling again at the impudence of the street hawker.
Norman did not go upstairs, but descended to the cellar, where he busied himself in looking over the contents of the three safes. In these, were many small boxes filled with gems of all kind, cut and uncut: also articles of jewellery consisting of necklaces, bracelets, stars for the hair, brooches, and tiaras. The jewels glittered in the flaring gaslight, and Aaron fondled them as though they were living things. "You beauties," he whispered to himself, with his one eye gloating over his hoard. "I'll sell you, though it goes to my heart to part with lovely things. But I must – I must – and then I'll go – not to America – oh, dear no! but to the South Seas. They won't find me there – no – no! I'll be rich, and happy, and free. Sylvia can marry and live happy. But the serpent," he said in a harsh tone, "oh, the opal serpent! The pawnbroker's shop. Stowley – yes – I know it. I know it. Stowley. They want it back; but they sha'n't. I'll buy it from Beecot by giving him Sylvia. It's lost – lost." He looked over his shoulder as he spoke in a terrified whisper. "Perhaps they have it, and then – then," he leaped up and flung the armful of baubles he held on to the deal table, "and then – I must get away – away."
He pulled out three or four coarse sacks of a small size and filled these with the jewellery. Then he tied a cord round the neck of each sack and sealed it. Afterwards, with a sigh, he closed the safe and turned down the gas. He did not leave by the trap, which led through the shop, but opened and locked the back door of the cellar, ascended the steps and went out into the street through the side passage. "If they come," he thought as he walked into the gathering night, "they won't find these. No! no!" and he hugged the bags closely.
Sylvia upstairs waited anxiously for the return of her father from the hospital, as she both wanted to hear how her lover was progressing and what he said about the permission to marry being given. But Aaron did not come to supper, as was his usual custom. Bart said, when inquiries were made, that the master had gone down into the cellar and was probably there. Meanwhile, according to his usual habit, he put up the shutters and departed. Sylvia and Deborah ate their frugal meal and retired to bed, the girl much disturbed at the absence of her father. Outside, in the street, the passers-by diminished in number, and as the night grew darker and the lamps were lighted hardly a person remained in Gwynne Street. It was not a fashionable thoroughfare, and after nightfall few people came that way. By eleven o'clock there was not a soul about. Even the one policeman who usually perambulated the street was conspicuous by his absence.
Sylvia, in her bed, had fallen into a troubled sleep, and was dreaming of Paul, but not happily. She seemed to see him in trouble. Then she woke suddenly, with all her senses alert, and sat up. Faintly she heard a wild cry, and then came the twelve strokes of the church bells announcing midnight. Breathlessly she waited, but the cry was not repeated. In the darkness she sat up listening until the quarter chimed. Then the measured footsteps of a policeman were heard passing down the street and dying away. Sylvia was terrified. Why, she hardly knew: but she sprang from her bed and hurried into Deborah's room. "Wake up," she said, "there's something wrong."
Deborah was awake in a moment and lighted the lamp. On hearing Sylvia's story she went down the stairs followed by the girl. The door at the bottom, strange to say, was not locked. Deborah opened this, and peering into the shop gave a cry of alarm and horror.
Lying on the floor was Aaron, bound hand and foot.
CHAPTER VII
A TERRIBLE NIGHT
"Go back! – go back, my precious!" cried Deborah,
