Selected Short Fiction by Charles Dickens Page A

should be instrumental in the discovery; if a breath of air sighed across it, to me it whispered murder. There was not a sight or sound how ordinary mean or unimportant soever, but was fraught with fear. And in this state of ceaseless watching I spent three days.
    On the fourth, there came to the gate one who had served with me abroad, accompanied by a brother officer of his whom I had never seen. I felt that I could not bear to be out of sight of the place. It was a summer evening, and I bade my people take a table and a flask of wine into the garden. Then I sat down with my chair upon the grave, and being assured that nobody could disturb it now, without my knowledge, tried to drink and talk.
    They hoped that my wife was well- that she was not obliged to keep her chamber - that they had not frightened her away. What could I do but tell them with a faltering tongue about the child? The officer whom I did not know was a down-looking man and kept his eyes upon the ground while I was speaking. Even that terrified me ! I could not divest myself of the idea that he saw something there which caused him to suspect the truth. I asked him hurriedly if he supposed that - and stopped. ‘That the child had been murdered?’ said he, looking mildly at me. ‘Oh, no! what could a man gain by murdering a poor child?’ I could have told him what a man gained by such a deed, no one better, but I held my peace and shivered as with an ague.
    Mistaking my emotion they were endeavouring to cheer me with the hope that the boy would certainly be found - great cheer that was for me - when we heard a low deep howl, and presently there sprung over the wall two great dogs, who bounding into the garden repeated the baying sound we had heard before.
    â€˜Blood-hounds!’ cried my visitors.
    What need to tell me that! I had never seen one of that kind in all my life, but I knew what they were and for what purpose they had come. I grasped the elbows of my chair, and neither spoke nor moved.
    â€˜They are of the genuine breed,’ said the man whom I had known abroad, ‘and being out for exercise have no doubt escaped from their keeper.’
    Both he and his friend turned to look at the dogs, who with their noses to the ground moved restlessly about, running to and fro, and up and down, and across, and round in circles, careering about like wild things, and all this time taking no notice of us, but ever and again lifting their heads and repeating the yell we had heard already, then dropping their noses to the ground again and tracking earnestly here and there. They now began to snuff the earth more eagerly than they had done yet, and although they were still very restless, no longer beat about in such wide circuits, but kept near to one spot, and constantly diminished the distance between themselves and me.
    At last they came up close to the great chair on which I sat, and raising their frightful howl once more, tried to tear away the wooden rails that kept them from the ground beneath. I saw how I looked, in the faces of the two who were with me.
    â€˜They scent some prey,’ said they, both together.
    â€˜They scent no prey!’ cried I.
    â€˜In Heaven’s name move,’ said the one I knew, very earnestly, ‘or you will be torn to pieces.’
    â€˜Let them tear me limb from limb, I’ll never leave this place!’ cried I. ‘Are dogs to hurry men to shameful deaths? Hew them down, cut them in pieces.’
    â€˜There is some foul mystery here!’ said the officer whom I did not know, drawing his sword. ‘In King Charles’s name assist me to secure this man.’

    They both set upon me and forced me away, though I fought and bit and caught at them like a madman. After a struggle they got me quietly between them, and then, my God! I saw the angry dogs tearing at the earth and throwing it up into the air like water.
    What more have I to tell? That I fell upon my knees and with