Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 3.djvu/324

 where they were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. The two attendants after a little whispering came out into the passage, stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell. They did so.

The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued to mutter, without seeming conscious of their presence otherwise than as a part of his vision.

"Good boy, Charley—well done—" he mumbled. "Oliver too, ha! ha! ha ! Oliver too—quite the gentleman now—quite the—take that boy away to bed."

The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver, and whispering him not to be alarmed, looked on without speaking.

"Take him away to bed—" cried the Jew. "Do you hear me, some of you? He has been the—the—somehow the cause of all this.