n book, earlier in the evening.
Garotted a fellow with jewels on him--in the Rue Noir, near the Market
Place--and nearly got into 'the stone bottle' for doing it. He was a
decoy, set there by the police for some of you fellows, and there was a
sergeant de ville after me like a whirlwind. I was not fool enough to
turn the chase in this direction, so I doubled and twisted until it was
safe to dive into the tavern of Fouchard, and lay in hiding there.
Fouchard let his son carry a message to the count for me, and will guide
him to the square. When it grew near the time to come, Fouchard let me
down into the sewer passage from there. Get on with your dance--silence
is always suspicious. An absinthe, Marise! Have Gaston and Serpice
arrived yet with the rest of the document, Margot la reine?"

"Not yet," she answered. "But one may expect them at any minute."

"Where is the fragment we already possess?"

"Here," tapping her bodice and laughing, "tenderly shielded, _mon ami_,
and why not? Who would not mother a thing that is to bring one four
hundred thousand francs?"

"Let me see it. It must be shown to the count, remember. He will take no
risks, come not one step beyond the square, until he is certain that it
is the paper his Government requires. Let me have it--let me take it to
him--quick!"

She waved aside airily the hand he stretched toward her, and danced into
the thick of the resumed quadrille.

"Ah, non! non! non!" she laughed, as he came after her. "The conditions
were of your own making, _cher ami_; we break no rules even among
ourselves."

"Soul of a fool! But if the count comes to the square--he is due there
now, mignonne--and I am not there to show him the thing--Margot, for the
love of God, let me have the paper!"

"Let me have the sign, the password!"

Cleek snapped at a desperate chance because there was nothing else to
do, because he knew that at any moment now the end might come.

"'When the purse will not open, slit it!'" he hazarded,
desperately--choosing, on the off-chance of its correctness, the
password of the Apache.

"It is not the right one! It is by no means the right one!" she made
reply, backing away from him suddenly, her absinthe-brightened eyes
deriding him, her absinthe-sharpened laughter mocking him. "Your
thoughts are in the Bois, _cher ami_. What is the password of the
brotherhood to the cause of Germany, stupid? It is not right, non! non!
It is not right!"

The cause of Germa