of their precious hole that the corners of each mouth were
twitching as the match was thrown away.

Fergus was fumbling for another when a step rang overhead; and at the
sharp exchange of words which both underground expected, Fergus came on
all fours to the old man's side, and together they sat gazing upward
into the pall of impenetrable crape.

"You infernal villain!" they heard Donkin roar, and stamp his feet with
such effect that the floor opened, and down through the square of light
came the cashier feet first.

"Heaven and hell!" he squealed, but subsided unhurt on hands and knees
as the flaps went up with such a snap that Macbean and Carrick nudged
each other at the same moment. "Now I know who you are!" the cashier
raved. "Call yourself Stingaree! You're Fowler dressed up, and this is
one of Macbean's putrid practical jokes. I saw his jackal hurrying in to
say I was coming. By cripes! it takes a surgical operation to see their
sort, I grant you."

There was a noise of subdued laughter overhead; even in the pit a dry
chuckle came through Macbean's set teeth.

"If it's practical joke o' mine, Donkin, it's recoiled on my own poor
pate," said the old man. "I've a rib stove in, too, if that's any
consolation to ye. It's Stingaree, my manny!"

"You're right, it is, it must be!" cried the cashier, finding his words
in a torrent. "I was going to tell you. He's been at his game down
south; stuck up our own mail again only yesterday, between this and
Deniliquin, and got a fine haul of registered letters, so they say. But
where the deuce are we? I never knew there was a cellar under here, let
alone a trap-door that might have been made for these villains."

"It was made for them," replied Macbean, after a pause; and in the dead
dark he went on to relate the frank and humble history of the hole, from
its inception to the crooked climax of that bitter hour. A braver
confession Fergus had never heard; its philosophic flow was unruffled by
the more and more scornful interjections of the ungenerous cashier; and
yet his younger countryman, who might have been proud of him, hardly
listened to a word uttered by Macbean.

Half-a-dozen fallen from the lips of Donkin had lightened young
Carrick's darkness with consuming fires of shame. "A fine haul of
registered letters"--among others his own last letter to his sister! So
it was he who had done it all; and he had perjured himself to his
benefactor, besides, betraying him. H