rt of the work to-night he will be
worthy of the homage of all."

"'If' he carries it out--'if'!" exclaimed Marise, with a lurch of the
shoulders and a flirt of her pudgy hand. "Soul of me! that's where the
difference lies. Had it been the Cracksman, there would have been no
'if'. It were done as surely as he attempted it. Name of misfortune! I
had gone into a nunnery had I lost such a man. But she----"

The voice of Margot shrilled out and cut into her words.

"Absinthe, Marise, absinthe for them all and set the score down to me!"
she cried. "Drink up, my bonny boys; drink up, my loyal maids.
Drink--drink till your skins will hold no more. No one pays to-night but
me!"

They broke into a cheer, and bearing down in a body upon Marise, threw
her into a fever of haste to serve them.

"To Margot!" they shouted, catching up the glasses and lifting them
high. "Vive la Reine des Apache! Vive la compagnie! To Margot! to
Margot!"

She swept them a merry bow, threw them a laughing salute, and drank the
toast with them.

"Messieurs, my love--mesdames et mademoiselles, my admiration," she
cried, with a ripple of joy-mad laughter. "To the success of the
Apaches, to the glory of four hundred thousand francs, and to the quick
arrival of Serpice and Gaston." Then, her upward glance catching sight
of the musicians sipping their absinthe in the little gallery above,
she flung her empty glass against the wall behind them, and shook with
laughter as they started in alarm and spilled the green poison when they
dodged aside. "Another dance, you dawdlers!" she cried. "Does Marise pay
you to sit there like mourners? Strike up, you mummies, or you pay
yourselves for what you drink to-night. Soul of desires!"--as the
musicians grabbed up their instruments, and a leaping, lilting,
quick-beating air went rollicking out over the hubbub--"a quadrille, you
angels of inspiration! Partners, gentlemen! Partners, ladies! A
quadrille! A quadrille!"

They set up a many-throated cheer, flocked out with her upon the floor,
and in one instant feet were flying, skirts were whirling, laughter and
jest mingling with waving arms and kicking toes, and the whole place was
in one mad riot of delirious joy.

And in the midst of this there rolled up suddenly a voice crying, as
from the bowels of the earth, "Hola! Hola! La! la! loi!" the cry of the
Apache to his kind.

"Mother of delights! It is one of us, and it comes from the sewer
passage!" shrilled o