The String of Pearls 136Todd Makes an Attempt Upon His Own Life
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The String of Pearls 136
Todd Makes an Attempt Upon His Own Life
PrestEnglish
In the course of a few minutes the tumult in the court was effectually suppressed, and then as it was known that the judge would sentence Todd at once, all eyes were turned upon the criminal, to note the effect which that awful moment was likely to have upon him.
The judge spoke.
"Sweeney Todd, you have been by an impartial and patient jury, convicted upon the clearest evidence of the murder of Francis Thornhill. Have you anything to say why sentence of death, according to the law, should not be passed forthwith upon you?"
Todd did not seem to understand the question, and the Governor of Newgate repeated it to him. He started then, and glared at the judge, as in a deep hollow voice, he said--
"Death! death!--Did you say death?"
"Such says the law--not I. If you have anything to say why that sentence should not be pronounced against you, now is your only time in which to say it."
Todd passed his hand twice across his brow before he spoke, and then, in a vehement voice, he said--
"It is false--all false. I did not kill the man. There is a vile conspiracy against me. I say I did not do it. Who saw me--what eye was upon me? I was at chapel--at prayers, when you say among you that I did it. It is a plot--nothing but a plot from first to last. You would make me the victim of it among you. Who saw me kill him? I know nothing of hidden places in the old house. It is not true, I say. A plot--a vile plot for my destruction."
"Have you finished?" said the judge.
"Have I not said enough? I know nothing of it. I am a poor man, and strive to get a living as best I might, and among you now you bring a bone from some churchyard to kill me with. You swear anything--I know you all well. If the man you say I killed be really dead, I here at this moment summon his spirit from another world, to come and bear witness for me that I did not kill him!"
These last words Todd yelled out in such a tone of frantic passion, that everybody looked aghast; and more than once, more than commonly superstitious spectators thought that the appeal to the beings of a supernatural world might yet be answered in some way.
There was a death-like stillness in the court for some few moments, and then the Governor of Newgate in a whisper, said to Todd--
"Have you finished?"
"Finished what?" he cried, in a startling tone. "Finished what?--Finished pleading for my life? Yes, I have, for I know that they have made up their minds to murder me. I have no witnesses--they are all in the grave now. That woman, Lovett, who is dead, you tell me--I cannot say if she be dead or not, she is hard to kill--that woman could exculpate me; but, as I say, my witnesses are in the grave, and there is no truth in spirits visiting this world again, or she and the man you say I murdered would appear here, and yell in your ears, all of you, that I did not do it."
The judge sat quite patiently. He was evidently resolved to hear quietly what Todd chose to say. It could but occupy a little more time; and as his fate was fixed, it did not matter.
"If you have finished your observations, prisoner," said the judge, "it will now be my duty to proceed to pass upon you the sentence of the law."
"But I have said I did not do it. I am not guilty."
"It does not lie within my power to decide that question. The jury have found you guilty, and all I have to do in my capacity here is, in accordance with that finding, to sentence you according to law. If you could have stated any legal impediment to the passing of the sentence, it would have had effect; but now it is my painful duty to--"
"Hold! I will, and can state a legal impediment."
"What is it?"
"I am mad!"
The judge opened his eyes rather wider than usual at this statement, and the jury looked at each other in wonder and amazement. Among the spectators there was a general movement, too, of surprise.
"Mad!" said the judge.
"Yes," added Todd, holding up his arms, "I am mad--quite mad. Do you think any other but a madman would have done the deeds with which you charge me? I either did not do them, and am saved, or I did do all these murders, the consequences of which you would heap upon my head, and am mad. What is there in the wide world would compensate a man for acting as you say I have acted? Could he ever know peace again? What is madness but an affliction of providence? and dare you take the life of a man, who has acted in a certain way, in consequence of a disease with which the Almighty has thought proper to visit him? I tell you you dare not, and that I am mad!"
This speech was uttered with a vehemence that made it wonderfully effective; and at its conclusion Todd still held up his arms, and glared upon the judge with the look of one who had advanced something that was utterly and completely unanswerable.
The judge leant over to the recorder, and whispered something to him, and the recorder whispered to the judge.
"Mad! Mad!" shrieked Todd again.
The Attorney-General now whispered something to the judge, who nodded; and then addressing Todd, he said in calm and measured tones--
"However great the novelty of a plea of insanity, put in by the party himself, may be, it will yet meet with every attention. I shall now proceed to pass sentence of death upon you; and after you are removed to the jail of Newgate, certain physicians will see you, and report upon your mental condition to the Secretary of State, who will act accordingly."
Todd dropped his arms.
The judge put on the black cap, and continued--
"Sweeney Todd, you have been convicted of the crime of murder; and certain circumstances, which it would have been improper to produce before this court in the progress of your trial, lead irresistibly to the belief that your life for years past has been one frightful scene of murder; and that not only the unhappy gentleman for whose murder you now stand here in so awful a position has suffered from your frightful practices, but many others. It will be a satisfaction, too, to the court and the jury to know that the woman named Lovett, who you say would and could have proved your innocence, had she been in life, made, shortly before her death, a full confession, wherein she inculpated you most fearfully."
"False! False!" cried Todd.
The judge took not the slightest notice of the interruption, but continued his speech--
"It is now my painful duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law, which is, that you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may Heaven have mercy upon you, for you cannot expect that society can do otherwise than put out of life one who, like yourself, has been a terror and a scourge."
"Quite mad!" cried Todd. "Quite mad!"
"Officers, remove the prisoner," said the judge, who was much disgusted by the attempt of Todd upon their credulity, by stating that he was mad.
The Governor of Newgate laid hold of him by the arm, but Todd raised his voice again, saying--
"One moment. Only one moment. Before I leave this court, I have a great desire to say something to Sir Richard Blunt."
"If Sir Richard Blunt has no objection," said the judge, "the court can have none. Is that gentleman present?"
"I am here," said Sir Richard, as he made his way towards the dock, in which Todd was. "What is it you have to say to me, Sweeney Todd?"
"It is for your private ear."
"Then, I decline to hear it. If you have anything to say to me, say it out, and openly. I decline any private communications."
"Nay, but it really interests those whom you love. Come a little closer to me, and I will speak it."
"Now," said Sir Richard, as he reached the front of the dock, "speak at once, and say what it is. The court is too indulgent to you."
"Is it, really!"
With the rapidity of thought, Todd drew a small table knife from the breast of his apparel, and made a stab at Sir Richard's neck with it; but the magistrate had had by far too long experience with such men as Todd to be so taken at unawares, and he dropped to the floor of the court before the point of the knife reached him. The Governor of Newgate sprung upon Todd, and disarmed him in a moment.
From seeing Sir Richard Blunt drop, the general impression in the court was, that he was killed, or seriously injured, by Todd; and in a moment a scene of unparalleled confusion arose. Everybody got up from their seats, and the place was full of cries.
"Kill him!" cried some.--"Down with him!" shouted others.--"Hang him at once! A surgeon for Sir Richard!"
Amid this Babel of confusion, Sir Richard Blunt rose again, and sprung upon the barrister's table, calling out in a loud voice that rose above every other sound--
"I am perfectly unhurt."
Upon this such a cheer arose in the court, that the judge saw that it was perfectly hopeless to attempt to stop it by any ordinary means, and he only held up his hand deprecatingly. The cheer was thrice repeated, and then Sir Richard dismounted from the table, and a death-like stillness ensued in the court as the judge spoke.
"How was it possible," he said, "that the prisoner at the bar could be furnished with such a weapon at a time like this?"
The Governor of Newgate felt that this question was addressed to him, and he tremblingly spoke, saying--
"My lord, I have not the most distant idea upon the subject. He was searched this morning carefully before leaving his cell. It is beyond my comprehension."
"My lord," said a counsel at the table, rising, "there was a very similar case about five years since, when a notorious criminal attacked a witness for the prosecution with a fork, and it appeared afterwards that as he was brought through some of the day-rooms of Newgate to the bar, he had hastily snatched it up from a table that he passed without the officers noticing him."
"This is very likely a similar case," said the judge.
"It may be so my lord," said the Governor.
Todd yelled with rage, when he found that Sir Richard Blunt had escaped his malice. If he could but have taken his life or inflicted upon him some very serious injury, he would have been satisfied almost to have gone to death; but to fail was almost enough to drive him really mad.
"Curses on ye all!" he cried; and then he burst into a torrent of such frightful invectives, that everybody shrunk aghast from it, and it is quite impossible that we should transfer it to our pages. How long he would have proceeded in such a storm, there is no knowing, had not the officers rushed upon him, and by main force dragged him from the dock and the court into the dark passages leading to Newgate.
His voice was yet heard for several moments, uttering the most dreadful and diabolical curses!
It may be supposed that after what had happened, the officials of the prison were not over tender in the treatment of Sweeney Todd, for they well knew that they would be some time before they heard the last of the knife business, and indeed it was a piece of gross carelessness to allow a man in Todd's situation, and such a man as Todd too, to have an opportunity of doing such very serious mischief in a moment as he might have done.
There can be very little doubt, that if he had been content to do an injury to any other witness but Sir Richard Blunt, he would really have succeeded; but that personage was too wary to fall in such a way.
It was not thought advisable by the prison authorities to take Todd back to the same cell from which they had brought him. It was an idea of the Governor, and by no means a bad one, that desperate criminals were caused to change their cells now and then, as it baffled and cut up completely any combination they might in their own minds have made for an attempted escape; so Todd found himself in a new place.
"Why is this?" he said. "Why am I placed here? This cell is darker than the one I before occupied."
"It's quite light enough for you," growled a turnkey.
"Yes," added one of the officers who had been in court. "Folks who are keen and bright enough to pick up knives, and nobody see 'em, mustn't have too much light in their cell. Oh, won't it be a mercy when you are settled next Monday morning."
"The fetters hurt me," said Todd.
"Oh, they are too light," said the officer; "and for your satisfaction, I have to tell you that the Governor has ordered you another pair."
At this moment a couple of blacksmiths came into the cell, carrying with them the heaviest set of irons in the whole prison, which the Governor had determined Sweeney Todd should be accommodated with. Without a word they proceeded to knock off the fetters that he wore.
"So you are not contented," said Todd, "to cage me as though I were some wild animal, but you must load me with irons?"
"And a good job too."
"And you think to hang me?"
"Rather!"
"Then thus I disappoint you, and be my own executioner!"
As he spoke, he snatched up one of the smith's hammers, and made a blow at his own forehead with it, which if it had taken effect, would unquestionably have fractured his skull, and killed him instantly; but one of the officers just managed to strike his arm at the moment and confuse his aim, so that although he did strike himself, it was not with anything like sufficient force to do himself any hurt.
The hammer was wrested from him in a moment, and he was thrown to the floor of the cell, and the heavy irons placed upon him.
