kinds, and over
bales and bundles that moved and rolled about. They passed into a
smaller cellar, around which were ranged long boxes of tin with rusty
covers.

Cranajour, who had been given the lantern to carry, was attracted to
these boxes: he lifted the cover of one of them and drew back
wonderstruck, for the box was full of shining gold pieces! Nibet, with a
jab and thrust in the back, interrupted Cranajour's contemplation of
this fortune:

"Nothing to faint over!" he growled. "You're not such a simpleton then!
You know the value of yellow boys? All right, then, I'll give you one or
two, if you do your job all right! But," continued the warder, leading
his companion to the further end of the second cellar, "you will have to
look out if you present your banker with one of those pieces, for the
little bits of shiny won't pass everywhere--you've got to keep your eye
open--and jolly wide, too!"

Cranajour nodded comprehension:

"False money! False money!" he murmured.

There was a very strong big door: an iron bar kept it closed. Nibet
raised it with Cranajour's help. Through the door the two men passed
into a long dark passage, swept by a sharp rush of air. The floor of it
was paved, and at the side of it flowed a pestilential stream, carrying
along in its slow-moving water a quantity of miscellaneous filth: it was
thick as soup with impurities.

"The little collecting sewer of the Cite," whispered Nibet. Pointing to
a grey patch in the distance he put his mouth to Cranajour's ear:

"See the daylight yonder? That's where the sewer discharges itself into
the Seine: it's there the boatman and his load will be waiting for us
presently."

Nibet stopped dead; drew Cranajour back by the sleeve, and stepped
stealthily backwards to the massive doors of the cellar. An unaccustomed
noise had alarmed the warder. In profound silence the two men stood
listening intently. There was no mistake! The sound of sharp regular
steps could be clearly heard coming from that part of the sewer opposite
the opening.

"Someone!" said Cranajour, who was all on the alert, as he had been in
his attic, watching the shadow and its vagaries on the roofs of the
Palais de Justice.

Nibet nodded.

The light from a dark lantern gleamed on the damp, slimy walls of the
subterranean passageway.

"Come inside," murmured Nibet, in an almost inaudible voice; and, with
infinite precaution, he closed the massive portal between the cellar and
the