o o'clock
in the morning, when Sikes woke him roughly and bade him come with them.

It was foggy and cold and dark outside. Sikes and one of the others each
took one of Oliver's hands, and so they walked a quarter of a mile to
where was a fine house with a high wall around it. They made him climb
over the wall with them, and, pulling him along, crept toward the house.

It was not till now that Oliver knew what they intended--that they were
going to rob the house and make him help them, so that he, too, would be
a burglar. His limbs began to tremble and he sank to his knees, begging
them to have mercy and to let him run away and die in the fields rather
than to make him steal. But Sikes drew his pistol with a frightful oath
and dragged him on.

In the back of the house was a window, which was not fastened, because
it was much too small for a man to get through. But Oliver was so
little that he could do it easily. With the pistol in his hand, Sikes
put Oliver through the window, gave him a lantern and bade him go and
unlock the front door for them.

[Illustration: "The Artful Dodger" introducing Oliver Twist to Fagin

_See page 55_]

Oliver had made up his mind that as soon as he got beyond the range of
Sikes's pistol he would scream and wake everybody in the house, but just
then there was a sound from inside, and Sikes called to him to come
back.

Suddenly there was a loud shout from the top of the stairs--a flash--a
report--and Oliver staggered back with a terrible pain in his arm and
with everything swimming before his eyes.

He heard cries and the loud ringing of a bell and felt Sikes drag him
backward through the window. He felt himself being carried along
rapidly, and then a cold sensation crept over his heart and he knew no
more.

III

HOW EVERYTHING TURNED OUT RIGHT FOR OLIVER IN THE END

After a long, long time Oliver came to himself. The morning was
breaking. He tried to rise and found that his arm was wounded and his
clothes wet with blood.

He was so dizzy he could hardly stand, but it was freezing cold, and he
knew if he stayed there he must die. So he staggered on till he came to
a road where, a little way off, he saw a house. There, he thought, he
might get help. But when he came closer he saw that it was the very
house the men had tried to rob that night. Fear came over him then, and
he would have run away, but he was too weak.

He had just strength left to push open the gate, totter acr