The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Part I, Chapters I-V [pp. E1-E8]

S UPPLEXMENAT-APPLETONS' JO URNAL.
1
.. * * 8 "iTHE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD " is issued abroad in monthly nuqnbers; and, instead of
dividing the parts into several weekly instalments, we shall publish each monthly number, as soon as received,
COMPLETE in one issute of the JOURNAL, printing it as a SUPPLEMENT.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
By CHARLES DICKENS.
CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN.
AN ancient English Cathedral Tower!
How can the ancient English Cathedral Tow er be here! The well-known massive gray
square tower of its old Cathedral How can
that be here' There is no spike of rusty iron
in the air, between the eye and it, from any
point of the real prospect. What is the
spike that intervenes, and who has set it up?
Maybe it is set up by the Sultan's orders for
the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers,
one by one. It is so, for cymbals clash, and
the Sultan goes by to his palace in long procession. Ten thousand cimeters flash in the
sunlight, and thrice ten thousand dancinggirls strew flowers. Then follow white elephants, caparisoned in countless gorgeous
colors, and infinite in number and attendants.
Still the Cathedral Tower rises in the background, where it cannot be, and still no
writhing figure is on the grim spike. Stay!
Is the spike so low a thing as the rusty spike
on the top of a post of an old bedstead that
has tumbled all awry? Some vague period
of drowsy laughter must be devoted to the
consideration of this possibility.
Shaking from head to foot, the man whose
scattered consciousness has thus fantastically pieced itself together at length rises, supports his trembling frame upon his arms, and
looks around. He is in the meanest and
closbst of small rooms. Through the ragged
window-curtain, the light of early day steals
in from a miserable court. He lies, dressed,
across a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead
that has indeed given way under the weight
upon it. Lying, also dressed and also across
the bed, not long-wise, ares a Chinaman, a
Lascar, and a haggard woman. The first
two are in a sleep or stupor; the last is blowing at a kind of pipe, to kindle it. And as
she blows, and, shading it with her lean hand,
concentrates its red spark of light, it serves
in the dim morning as a lamp to show him
what he sees of her.
"Another?" says this woman, in a querulous, rattling whisper. "Have another? "
He looks about him, with his hand to his
forehead.
"Ye've smoked as many as five since ye
come in at midnight," the woman goes on, as
she chronically complains. " Poor me, poor
me, my head is so bad! Them two come in
after ye. Ah, poor me, the business is slack,
is slack! Few Chinamen about the Docks,
. and fewer Lascars, and no ships coming in,
these say! Here's another ready for ye,
deary. Ye'll remember, like a good soul,
won't ye, that the market price is drefile high
just now? More nor three shillings and sixpence for a thimbleful! And ye'll remember
that nobody but me (and Jack Chinaman
t'other side the court; but he can't do it as
well as me) has the true secret of mixing it?
Y'ell pay up according, deary, won't ye?
She blows at the pipe as she speaks, and,
occasionally bubbling at it, inhales much of
its contents.
"0 me, 0 me, my lungs is weak, my
lungs is bad! It's nearly ready for ye, deary.
Ah, poor me, poor me, my poor hand shakes
like to drop off! I see ye coming-to, and I
ses to my poor self,' Ill have another ready
for him, and he'll bear in mind the market
price of opium, and pay according.' 0 my
poor head! I makes my pipes of old penny
ink-bottles, ye see, deary-this is one and I
fits in a mouthpiece, this way, and I takes
my mixter out of this thimble with this little
horn-spoon; and so I fills, deary. Ah, my
poor nerves I I got Heavens-hard drunk for
sixteen year afore I took to this; but this
don't hurt me, not to speak of. And it
takes away the hunger as well as wittles,
deary."
She hands him the nearly-emptied pipe,
and sinks back, turning over on her face.
He rises unsteadily from the bed, lays the
pipe upon the hearthstone, draws back the
ragged curtain, and looks with repugnance
at his three companions. He notices that the
woman has opium-smoked herself into a
strange likeness of the Chinaman. His form
of cheek, eye, and temple, and his color, are
repeated in her. Said Chinaman convulsively wrestles with one of his many Gods, or
Devils, perhaps, and snarls horribly. The
Lascar laughs and dribbles at the mouth. The
hostess is still.
"What visions can she have I" the waking man muses, as he turns her face toward
him, and stands looking down at it. " Visions of many butchers' shops, and publichouses, and much credit? Of an increase of
hideous customers, and this horrible bedstead set upright again, and this horrible
court swept clean? What can she rise to,
under any quantity of opium, higher than
that!-Eh? "
He bends down his ear, to listen to her
mutterings.
" Unintelligible!"
As he watches the spasmodic shoots and
darts that break out of her face and limbs,
like fitful lightning out of a dark sky, some
contagion in them seizes upon him, insomuch that he has to withdraw himself to a
lean arm-chair by the hearth-placed there,
perhaps, for such emergencies-and to sit in
it, holding tight, until he has got the better
of this unclean spirit of imitation.
Then he comes back, pounces on the Chinaman, and, seizing him with both hands by
the throat, turns him violently on the bed.
The Chinaman clutches the aggressive hands,
resists, gasps, and protests.
"What do you say? "
A watchful pause. 5
"Unintelligible!"
Slowly loosening his grasp as he listens to
the incoherent jargon with an attentive frown,
he turns to the Lascar and fairly drags him
forth upon the floor. As he falls, the Lascar
starts into a half-risen attitude, glares with
his eyes, lashes about him fiercely with his
arms, and draws a phantom knife. It then
becomes apparent that the woman has takeni
possession of his knife, for safety's sake; for,
she too starting up, and restraining and ex postulating with him, the knife is visible in
her dress, not in his, when they drowsily drop
back, side by side.
There has been chattering and clattering
enough between them, but to no purpose.
When any distinct word has been flung into
the air, it has had no sense or sequence.
Wherefore "unintelligible!" is again the
comment of the watcher, made with some
reassured nodding of his head, and a gloomy
smile. He then lays certain silver money on
the table, finds his hat, gropes his way down
the broken stairs, gives a good-morning to
some rat-ridden doorkeeper, in bed in a
black hutch beneath the stairs, and passes
out.
That same afternoon, the massive gray
square tower of an old Cathedral rises before
the sight of a jaded traveller. The bells are
going for daily vesper service, and he must
needs attend it, one would say, from his haste
to reach the open cathedral door. The choir
are getting on their sullied white robes, in a
hurry, when he arrives among them, gets on
his own robe, and falls into the procession
filing in to service. Then the Sacristan locks
the iron-barred gates that divide the sanctu ary from the chancel, and all of the proces sion, having scuttled into their places, hide
their faces; and then the intoned words,
"WHEN THE WICKED MAN-" rise among
groins of arches and beams of roof, awaken ing muttered thunder.
CHAPTER II.
A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO.
WHOSOEVER has observed that sedate and
clerical bird, the rook, may perhaps have noticed that when he wings his way homeward
toward nightfall, in a sedate and clerical conpany, two rooks will suddenly detach themselves from the rest, will retrace their flight
for some distance, and will there poise and
linger, conveying to mere men the fancy that
it is of some occult importance to the body
politic that this artful couple should pretend
to have renounced connection with it.
Similarly, service being over in the old
cathedral with the square tower, and the choir
scuffling out again, and divers venerable persons of rook-like aspect dispersing, two of
these latter retrace their steps, and walk together in the echoing Close.
Not only is the day waning, but the yea:.
The low sun is fiery and yet cold behind the
monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on
the cathedral-wall has showered half its deepred leaves down on the pavement. there
has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry