Sikes's flight and death

The murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes is the most brutal act in Oliver Twist, and the flight and death that follow constitute the novel's most sustained and harrowing sequence of psychological torment and physical pursuit. From the moment Sikes strikes Nancy down in his room, he is plunged into a nightmare of his own making, a fugitive not only from the law but from the ghastly vision of his victim that haunts him without respite. His desperate, circuitous flight across the northern outskirts of London, his brief refuge in a Hatfield inn, his immersion in a great fire, and his final, trapped stand on Jacob's Island all chart a descent into a hell of guilt and terror that culminates in an accidental, yet poetically just, death by his own rope.

The Murder and the Immediate Aftermath

Sikes's flight begins in the very room where the murder occurred. After beating Nancy down with a heavy club, he is left alone with the corpse as dawn breaks. The bright sun, which he tries to shut out, streams in and illuminates the ghastly scene: the body, the pool of gore that quivers on the ceiling, and the blood that has stained everything, even the feet of his dog, Bull's-eye. In a frenzy of concealment, he kindles a fire and thrusts the murder weapon—a club with hair upon its end—into the flames, watching it blaze and shrink into a cinder. He cuts blood-spotted pieces from his clothes and burns them. He washes himself, but the stains seem to have spread everywhere. Throughout these preparations, he never once turns his back on the corpse. He moves backward toward the door, dragging the dog with him, locks the room, and takes the key. A single, instantaneous glance up at the window confirms the curtain is still drawn, and he knows the body lies nearly under there. The sun pours down upon the very spot. He whistles for the dog and walks rapidly away.

The Wandering and the Haunting

Sikes's flight is not a straight line but a tortured, circular wandering. He goes through Islington, up the hill at Highgate, then down again, striking off across the fields, skirting Caen Wood, and coming onto Hampstead Heath. He lies down under a hedge to sleep, but soon he is up again, wandering back toward London, then back again, over the same ground, lying on ditches' brinks, starting up to ramble on. He is consumed by a perversity of feeling and irresolution. He tries to go to Hendon for food, but the very children at the doors seem to view him with suspicion, and he turns back without purchasing a bit. Morning and noon pass, and still he rambles to and fro, always returning to the old place. At last he gets away and shapes his course for Hatfield.

At a small public-house in Hatfield, he sits in the furthest corner, eating and drinking alone with his dog. The conversation of the country labourers is mundane, but the peace is shattered by the noisy entrance of a pedlar who, to sell his stain-removing cakes, points out a dark stain on Sikes's hat. The word "blood-stain" triggers a violent reaction: Sikes overturns the table, tears the hat from the man, and bursts out of the house. He then overhears a mail-coach guard mention a murder in Spitalfields, confirming that the crime is already public knowledge. This news, however, does not drive him to greater speed but deepens his paralysis.

As he leaves Hatfield and plunges into the solitude and darkness of the road, a dread and awe creep upon him that shake him to the core. Every object takes the semblance of some fearful thing, but these fears are nothing compared to the sense that haunts him of Nancy's ghastly figure following at his heels. He can trace its shadow in the gloom, hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind comes laden with that last low cry. If he stops, it does the same; if he runs, it follows—not running, but like a corpse borne on one slow, melancholy wind. He turns with desperate determination to beat the phantom off, but it has turned with him and is behind him. He leans against a bank and feels it standing above him; he throws himself on his back on the road, and at his head it stands, silent, erect, and still—a living gravestone with its epitaph in blood. The narrator declares that there were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear.

He seeks shelter in a shed in a field, but there a new vision comes before him: Nancy's widely staring, lustreless, glassy eyes. They are everywhere, light in themselves but giving light to nothing. If he shuts out the sight, the room with every well-known object appears, the body in its place, the eyes as he saw them when he stole away. He rushes into the field, but the figure is behind him; he re-enters the shed, and the eyes are there before he has laid himself along.

The Fire and the Return to London

Suddenly, the noise of distant shouting and the roar of voices arise on the night-wind. The broad sky seems on fire. Sheets of flame rise into the air, lighting the atmosphere for miles. The cry of "Fire!" mingles with the ringing of an alarm-bell. For Sikes, this is like new life. He darts onward, dashing through brier and brake, leaping gate and fence as madly as his dog. He plunges into the thickest of the throng, working at the pumps, hurrying through the smoke and flame, up and down ladders, on roofs of buildings, under the lee of falling bricks and stones. He bears a charmed life, with neither scratch nor bruise, nor weariness nor thought, until morning dawns and only smoke and blackened ruins remain.

But the mad excitement over, the dreadful consciousness of his crime returns with tenfold force. He hears firemen from London talking about the murder, saying the scouts are out and by to-morrow night there will be a cry all through the country. He hurries off, walks till he almost drops, then lies down in a lane for a broken, uneasy sleep. Suddenly, he takes the desperate resolution to go back to London, reasoning that there will be somebody to speak to there, a good hiding-place, and a chance to force blunt from Fagin and get abroad to France. He begins his journey back, choosing the least frequented roads.

On the way, he resolves to drown his dog, Bull's-eye, fearing that any description of the animal might lead to his apprehension. He picks up a heavy stone and ties it to his handkerchief. But the dog, as if apprehending his purpose, cowers and stops outright when his master halts at the brink of a pool. Sikes calls him, and the animal comes up from force of habit, but when Sikes stoops to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he utters a low growl and starts back. Sikes makes a running noose and calls again, but the dog advances, retreats, pauses an instant, and then scours away at his hardest speed. Sikes whistles again and again, but no dog appears, and he resumes his journey alone.

The Siege on Jacob's Island

Sikes's flight ends on Jacob's Island, a filthy, desolate slum in the Borough of Southwark, surrounded by a muddy ditch called Folly Ditch. Here, in an upper room of a ruinous house, he finds Toby Crackit, Tom Chitling, and a returned transport named Kags. The men are already in a state of terror, having heard that Fagin has been taken and that the gang is smashed. Sikes enters like a ghost: blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, a beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short thick breath. He drags a chair close to the wall and sits down. The silence is broken only by his hollow voice asking how the dog came there and whether the report of Fagin's capture is true.

Charley Bates arrives and, seeing Sikes, recoils in horror. The boy, who has been appalled by Sikes's crime, cries out that he will give him up, shouting "Murder! Help!" and actually throws himself single-handed upon the strong man, bringing him heavily to the ground. The struggle is unequal, and Sikes has his knee on the boy's throat when Crackit pulls him back, pointing to the window. Lights are gleaming below, voices in loud conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps—endless in number—crossing the nearest wooden bridge. A man on horseback is among the crowd. The gleam of lights increases; the footsteps come more thickly and noisily. Then comes a loud knocking at the door and a hoarse murmur from a multitude of angry voices.

Charley Bates screams, "He's here! Break down the door!" Strokes, thick and heavy, rattle upon the door and lower window-shutters, and a loud huzzah bursts from the crowd. Sikes, in a fury, locks the boy in another room. The downstairs door is double-locked and chained, the panels lined with sheet-iron, the windows also fortified. Sikes throws up the sash and menaces the crowd, crying, "Do your worst! I'll cheat you yet!" The cry of the infuriated throng is terrific. Some shout to set the house on fire; others roar to the officers to shoot him dead. Among them all, the man on horseback—Mr. Brownlow—cries out, "Twenty guineas to the man who brings a ladder!" The crowd surges, some calling for ladders, some for sledge-hammers, some attempting to climb the water-spout.

The Fall and the Dog's Death

Sikes, seeing the tide is in, decides to drop into Folly Ditch and escape that way. He selects the longest and strongest cord, hurries up to the house-top, and plants a board against the door to prevent entry. He creeps over the tiles and looks over the low parapet, only to find that the water is out and the ditch is a bed of mud. The crowd, seeing his purpose defeated, raises a cry of triumphant execration. The houses on the opposite side of the ditch have been entered by the mob; tiers of faces appear in every window; each little bridge bends beneath the weight of the crowd. Mr. Brownlow cries out that he will give fifty pounds to the man who takes him alive.

At the moment when the door is forced and the crowd pours into the house, Sikes, roused into new strength, sets his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastens one end of the rope tightly around it, and makes a strong running noose with the other. He intends to let himself down by the cord and then cut it to drop. But at the very instant he brings the loop over his head, he looks behind him on the roof, throws his arms above his head, and utters a yell of terror. "The eyes again!" he cries in an unearthly screech. Staggering as if struck by lightning, he loses his balance and tumbles over the parapet. The noose is on his neck. It runs up with his weight, tight as a bow-string and swift as the arrow it speeds. He falls for five-and-thirty feet. There is a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs, and there he hangs, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand. The old chimney quivers with the shock but stands. The murderer swings lifeless against the wall.

A dog, which had lain concealed till now, runs backwards and forwards on the parapet with a dismal howl. Collecting himself for a spring, he jumps for the dead man's shoulders. Missing his aim, he falls into the ditch, turning completely over as he goes, and striking his head against a stone, dashes out his brains. The boy, Charley Bates, thrusts aside the dangling body and calls to the people to come and take him out, for God's sake.