Dara

more and more people came to witness the dawn hanging, I was so squeezed by the swaying dense multitude that it was a wonder some of my ribs did not get broken. From the way almost everybody was behaving you wouldn't think we were waiting to see someone meet with a sudden death. Brutish ruffians, boozed up to the eyeballs, were shouting obscenities as they fought with bottles of beer; tipsy whores with arms linked sang the most disgusting bawdy songs; young bloods, the sons of the aristocracy, dangerously drunk, lashed out with their sticks at the slightest provocation, and slippery villains picked pockets as they slipped through the crowd.

When Lucy Flowers appeared on the platform of the gallows she was greeted by a deafening roar from the crowd. She was a stoutish woman of middle years who had been condemned to death for poisoning a relative to get her money. It was a wicked thing to do but I couldn't help feeling sorry for her, shrinking back before the onslaught of fearsome oaths and filthy language directed at her as the hangman slipped the noose around her neck. It was a gruesome spectacle. I couldn't bear to look and had to close my eyes just before she dropped through the open boards. Adam said that because she was a heavy, well-built woman 'she fell beautiful.'

The night after the hanging we were in 'The Half Moon' tavern. I was talking to Florrie when Adam came to tell me that he and Tom Biggs had some business to see to and they would be back at the tavern within the hour. He had done this often enough before, returning full of cheer and good humour. I had no reason to be concerned but I became agitated with worry when an hour passed and they were still absent.

It didn't help to stand in the doorway of the tavern peering anxiously into the darkness of the street so, after a time, I came back to our table to have another drink. I had hardly got seated when Tom Biggs rushed in all of a sweat and breathless with excitement. He helped himself to my drink, took a deep breath, looked across the room vacantly, and in a low voice said, out of the side of his mouth, 'They got 'im!'

Adam?' I queried.

'Yus. The police collared 'im wiv the swag. It was lucky they didn't see me, 'cos I 'ad stopped to tie up me boot lace when they nabbed 'im.'

'You were out thieving?' I asked in shocked surprise.

'Gaw blimey! Didn't yer know?' he exclaimed. 'I fought you were in on it. Gawd, luv a duck, where did yer fink all the money was comin' from?' Shaking his head in wonder, he exclaimed with admiration, ''E put up an 'ell of a fight, kickin' an' buttin' 'em. They 'ad ter knock 'im aht wiv their truncheons before they could get the grapplin' irons on 'is wrists.'

I sat deflated in stunned silence, unable to take it all in. 'Can I go and see him?'

'Nah, yer'll 'ave to wait 'til after the trial,' he answered gruffly. “E'll be at least a year on the treadmill if yer ask me. Poor bugger, it'll bleedin' break Mm-you'll see.'

I tried to see Adam after he had been sentenced to two years' hard labour on the treadmill but was brusquely turned away by an officer at the prison gates. Two weeks later, a sovereign discreetly passed into the 'turnkey's' hand opened doors for a brief visit. With a heavy bunch of keys clanking by his side he led me through long passages to a room divided by an iron grille.

Adam looked at me through the bars. 'Yer shouldn't 'ave come,' he said in a low, lifeless voice. 'I told 'em I didn't want no visitors but they forced me to come an' meet yer.'

He was a pale shadow of his former self, a hollow thing with all the stuffing knocked out of him. I could have wept but held the tears back and tried to put on a bright smile.

With head hung down he muttered in a whisper of bitterness, 'I'm not stayin' 'ere. You'll see. I'll break aht of 'ere some'ow.'

There was a long pause with neither of us knowing what to say next. Moving away from the iron bars, he looked at me with an expressionless face. 'Get aht. I don't want yer to see me like this and, for Gawd's sake, don't come again.'

With a heart heavy with sorrow I watched him shuffle to the guard who took him through a stout oak door at the back of the room, and out of my life for ever.

Now that I was left to my own resources the problem of earning a living was uppermost in my mind. Selling some of my clothes and other personal items brought in sufficient money to stock the barrow with an assortment of fruit and vegetables. Pushing the loaded vehicle from Covent Garden to Mart Street just about exhausted me and I had little energy left to shout for trade. All around me were costermongers much more experienced than I. We were in fierce competition to attract people to our stalls. As the day wore on I learnt that owing to my inexperience I had bought at too high a price and, if I was to clear what remained on the barrow, I would have to sell at a loss. By nightfall there was less money in my pocket than I had started with.

The money from selling my personal possessions had to feed three mouths as my two little mud larks were going through a bad patch, unable to find sufficient odds and ends on the riverside to feed them. They would have starved to death without my help. Altogether it was getting to be a desperate situation. When I got down to the last few items that would bring in some money I decided to consult Florrie in the hope that she might come up with an idea that would solve my financial problems.

As I was about to enter 'The Half Moon' tavern a voice from the shadows alongside the door said, 'Dara, I got a message for yer. It's Adam, 'e wants ter see yer. 'E's 'idin' at my place.'

It was the dwarf. At first I thought he was up to one of his usual tricks, then remembering Adam's words at the prison, 'I'm not stayin' 'ere. I'll break aht of 'ere some'ow', I began to wonder; was it possible that he had made an escape from the jail after all?

The dwarf tugged at my skirt. 'Come on. We don't want ter wait arahnd 'ere. Somebody might foller us.'

I still hesitated, unable to make up my mind if the dwarf was speaking the truth, but if Adam was in need of help I ought to get to him as soon as possible. Adam had told me on one occasion when we had been discussing the lecherous little maniac that the dwarf lived behind some empty warehouses. It would be just the sort of place for Adam to make for if he had escaped.

There was urgency and impatience in the dwarfs voice as he stepped away from me. Are yer comin' or aren't yer? P'raps Adam'll believe me now. I told 'im wot a fool 'e was, expecting 'elp from a toffee-nosed sod like you. S'only when yer dahn 'n aht yer find aht 'oo yer real mates are.'

I hesitated no longer. 'Shut your mouth,' I said angrily. 'Take me to Adam.'

To avoid being seen, he led me through darkened, stinking back alleys, stopping from time to time to listen in case someone was following. Convinced that he had been speaking the truth after all and that Adam was anxiously waiting for me, I was in a fever of impatience to get to him as quickly as possible and urged the dwarf to quicken his steps.

The wooden stairway we ascended took us to a jetty jutting out above the swirling waters of the river. Moving cautiously along a gangway to a small building at the very end of the wharf, we came to a door which the dwarf unlocked and pushed open, then made way for me to pass him. I couldn't see a thing as it was pitch black inside.

'Hurry up,' the dwarf whispered. 'I want to get the door shut before I light a candle.'

Treading warily, I moved slowly forward with hands outstretched in case I bumped into something and asked, 'Adam, where are you?'

I had hardly got the words out of my mouth when I was sent sprawling by the weight of the dwarf jumping on my back. We fell face downwards with his arms around my shoulders.

'Don't move,' he said in a hoarse, menacing voice. 'I got a knife at yer froat and I'll cut yer fuckin' 'ead orf if yer move as much as an inch.'

The sharp tip of the knife was pressing into my gullet as he lay astride me. I knew by the sound of his voice he meant every word of his threat and was scared spitless, waiting for what might come next. Terrified that this demented monster who had tricked me into this dark, lonely place might take it into his head to finish me off, there and then, I lay, my whole body paralysed with fear.

He forced me to crawl to a low, iron bed and onto a coarse mattress. He turned me onto my back and said, 'I'm puttin' the knife between me teef where I can get at it quick so lie still or else yer'll get yer bleedin' froat cut.'

Shuddering in fear with the blood pounding through my head, I felt a rope being tied around my wrist, and then jerked tight as he attached it to a corner of the bed; then he did the same with the other arm. He pulled the skirt away from my trembling legs, then tied my ankles to the bottom corners of the bed. I lay spread-eagled, limbs apart and unable to move more than an inch or two.

Scrambling on top of me, he pressed the razor sharp tip of the knife into the tender skin of my throat and