Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 3.djvu/270

 sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?"

"You may stop here, if you think it safe," returned the person addressed, after some hesitation.

Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him, rather trying to turn his head than actually doing it, and said, "Is—it—the body—is it buried?"

They shook their heads.

"Why isn't it!" said the man with the same glance behind him. "Wot do they keep such ugly things as that, above the ground for?—Who's that knocking?"

Crackit intimated by a motion of his hand as he left the room that there was nothing to fear, and directly came back with Charley Bates behind him. Sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy entered the room he encountered his figure.

"Toby," said the boy falling back as Sikes turned his eyes towards him. "Why didn't you tell me this, down stairs?"

There had been something so tremendous in