He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing to and fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others coming laden from the burning pile amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and children shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers. The clanking of the engine-pumps and the spirting and hissing of the water as it fell upon the blazing wood added to the tremendous roar. He shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself plunged into the thickest of the throng. Hither and thither he dived that night—now working at the pumps, and now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and men were thickest. Up and down the ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with his weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones,—in every part of that great fire was he, but he bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again and only smoke and blackened ruins remained. This mad excitement over, there returned with tenfold force the dreadful consciousness of his crime. He looked suspiciously about him, for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared to be the subject of their talk. The dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and they drew off stealthily together. He passed near an engine where some men were seated, and they called to him to share in their refreshment. He took some bread and meat; and as he drank a draught of beer, heard the firemen, who were from London, talking about the murder. “He has gone to Birmingham, they say,” said one: “but they’ll have him yet, for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow night there’ll be a cry all through the country.” [Illustration: _Sikes attempting to destroy his dog._] He hurried off and walked till he almost dropped upon the ground; then lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and uneasy, sleep. He wandered on again, irresolute and undecided, and oppressed with the fear of another solitary night. Suddenly he took the desperate resolution of going back to London. “There’s somebody to speak to there, at all events,” he thought. “A good hiding-place, too. They’ll never expect to nab me there after this country scent. Why can’t I lay by for a week or so, and forcing blunt from Fagin get abroad to France! Dam’me, I’ll risk it.”