The police, on their side, lost no time; but they had to get out of the crowd in the passage and go round the front of the house, before they could arrive at the turning which led into the court from the street. This gave the fugitives a start; and the neighborhood of alleys, lanes, and by-streets in which their flight immediately involved them, was the neighborhood of all others to favor their escape. While the springing of rattles and the cries of "Stop thief!" were rending the frosty night air in one direction, Zack and the stranger were walking away quietly, arm in arm, in the other.
The man with the skull-cap had taken the lead hitherto, and he took it still; though, from the manner in which he stared about him at corners of streets, and involved himself and his companion every now and then in blind alleys, it was clear enough that he was quite unfamiliar with the part of the town through which they were now walking. Zack, having treated himself that night to his fatal third glass of grog, and having finished half of it before the fight began, was by this time in no condition to care about following any particular path in the great labyrinth of London. He walked on, talking thickly and incessantly to the stranger, who never once answered him. It was of no use to applaud his bravery; to criticize his style of fighting, which was anything but scientific; to express astonishment at his skill in knocking his hat on again, all through the struggle, every time it was knocked off; and to declare admiration of his quickness in taking the cook's hat to cover his companion's bare head, which might have exposed him to suspicion and capture as he passed through the streets. It was of no use to speak on these subjects, or on any others. The imperturbable hero who had not uttered a word all through the fight, was as imperturbable as ever, and would not utter a word after it.
They strayed at last into Fleet Street, and walked to the foot of Ludgate Hill. Here the stranger stopped—glanced towards the open space on the right, where the river ran—gave a rough gasp of relief and satisfaction—and made directly for Blackfriars bridge. He led Zack, who was still thick in his utterance, and unsteady on his legs, to the parapet wall; let go of his arm there, and looking steadily in his face by the light of the gas-lamp, addressed him, for the first time, in a remarkably grave, deliberate voice, and in these words:
"Now, then, young 'un, suppose you pull a breath, and wipe that bloody nose of yours."
Zack, instead of resenting this unceremonious manner of speaking to him—which he might have done, had he been sober—burst into a frantic fit of laughter. The remarkable gravity and composure of the stranger's tone and manner, contrasted with the oddity of the proposition by which he opened the conversation, would have been irresistibly ludicrous even to a man whose faculties were not in an intoxicated condition.
While Zack was laughing till the tears rolled down his cheeks, his odd companion was leaning over the parapet of the bridge, and pulling off his black kid gloves, which had suffered considerably during the progress of the fight. Having rolled them up into a ball, he jerked them contemptuously into the river.
"There goes the first pair of gloves as ever I had on, and the last as ever I mean to wear," he said, spreading out his brawny hands to the sharp night breeze.
Young Thorpe heaved a few last expiring gasps of laughter; then became quiet and serious from sheer exhaustion.
"Go it again," said the man of the skull-cap, staring at him as gravely as ever, "I like to hear you."
"I can't go it again," answered Zack faintly; "I'm out of breath. I say, old boy, you're quite a character! Who are you?"
"I ain't nobody in particular; and I don't know as I've got a single friend to care about who I am, in all England," replied the other. "Give us your hand, young 'un! In the foreign parts where I come from, when one man stands by another, as you've stood by me to-night, them two are brothers together afterwards. You needn't be a brother to me, if you don't like. I mean to be a brother to you, whether you like it or not. My name's Mat. What's your's?"
"Zack," returned young Thorpe, clapping his new acquaintance on the back with brotherly familiarity already. "You're a glorious fellow; and I like your way of talking. Where do you come from, Mat? And what do you wear that queer cap under your hat for?"
"I come from America last," replied Mat, as grave and deliberate as ever. "And I wear this cap because I haven't got no scalp on my head."
"What do you mean?" cried Zack, startled into temporary sobriety, and taking his hand off his new friend's shoulder as quickly as if he had put it on red-hot iron.
"I always mean what I say," continued Mat; "I've got that much good about me, if I haven't got no more. Me and my scalp parted company years ago. I'm here, on a bridge in London, talking to a young chap of the name of Zack. My scalp's on the top of a high pole in some Indian village, anywhere you like about the Amazon country. If there's any puffs of wind going there, like there is here, it's rattling just now, like a bit of dry parchment; and all my hair's a flip-flapping about like a horse's tail, when the flies is in season. I don't know nothing more about my scalp or my hair than that. If you don't believe me, just lay hold of my hat, and I'll show you—"
"No, thank you!" exclaimed Zack, recoiling from the offered hat. "I don't want to see it. But how the deuce do you manage without a scalp?—I never heard of such a thing before in my life—how is it you're not dead? eh?"
"It takes a deal more to kill a tough man than you London chaps think," said Mat. "I was found before my head got cool, and plastered over with leaves and ointment. They'd left a bit of scalp at the back, being in rather too great a hurry to do their work as handily as usual; and a new skin growed over, after a little—a babyish sort of skin, that wasn't half thick enough, and wouldn't bear no new crop of hair. So I had to eke out and keep my head comfortable with an old yellow handkercher; which I always wore till I got to San Francisco, on my way back here. I met with a priest at San Francisco, who told me that I should look a little less like a savage, if I wore a skull-cap like his, instead of a handkercher, when I got back into what he called the civilized world. So I took his advice, and bought this cap. I suppose it looks better than my old yellow handkercher; but it ain't half as comfortable."
"But how did you lose your scalp?" asked Zack—"tell us all about it. Upon my life, you're the most interesting fellow I ever met with! And, I say, let's walk about, while we talk. I feel steadier on my legs now; and it's so infernally cold standing here."
"Which way can we soonest get out of this muck of houses and streets?" asked Mat, surveying the London view around him with an expression of grim disgust. "There ain't no room, even on this bridge, for the wind to blow fairly over a man. I'd just as soon be smothered up in a bed, as smothered up in smoke and stink here."
"What a delightful fellow you are! so entirely out of the common way! Steady, my dear friend. The grog's not quite out of my head yet; and I find I've got the hiccups. Here's my way home, and your way into the fresh air, if you really want it. Come along; and tell me how you lost your scalp."
"There ain't nothing particular to tell. What's your name again?"
"Zack."
"Well, Zack, I was out on the tramp, dodging about after any game that turned up, on the banks of the Amazon—"
"Amazon? what's that? a woman? or a place?"
"Did you ever hear of South America?"
"I can't positively swear to it; but, to the best of my belief, I think I have."