nkin' cage,
don't it? Better investigate afore we 'it it too hard, sir."

"You're right, Dollops."

Cleek stepped cautiously forward into the gloom, lighting it up as he
progressed, the rays of his tiny torch always some five feet ahead of
him. And the end it proved to be, in every sense of the word. For here,
leading upward as the other had done, was a similar little flight of
clay-hewn steps, while at the top of them--Cleek gave a long sigh of
relief--showed a square of indigo, a couple of stars and--escape at last.

"Thank God!" murmured Cleek, as they mounted the rough steps and came out
into the open air, with the free sky above them and a fine wind blowing
that soon dispelled the effects of their underground journey. "Gad! it's
good to smell the fresh air again--eh, Dollops? Where on earth are we? I
say--look over there, will you?"

Dollops looked; then gasped in wonder, astonishment, and considerable
awe.

"The Flames, guv'nor--the blinkin' Frozen Flames!"

Cleek laughed.

"Yes. The Flames all right, Dollops. And nearer than we've seen 'em, too!
We must be right in the middle of the Fens, from the appearance of those
lights, so, all told, we've done a mile or more underground, which isn't
so bad, my lad, when you come to look at the time." He brought out his
watch and surveyed it in the moonlight. "H'm. Ten past eleven. You'll
have to look sharp, boy, if you're to get to the docks by twelve. We've a
good four miles' walk ahead of us, and--what was that?"

"That" was the sound of a man's feet coming swiftly toward them; they had
one second to act, and flight over this marshy ground, filled with pit
holes as it was, was impossible. No; the best plan was to stay where they
were and chance it.

"Talk, boy--_talk_," whispered Cleek, and began a hasty conversation in a
high-pitched, cockney voice, to which Dollops bravely made answer in the
best tone he could muster under the circumstances.

Then a voice snapped out at them across the small distance that separated
them from the unseen stranger, and they stiffened instinctively.

"What the hell are you doing here?" it called. "Don't you know that it's
not safe to be in this district after nightfall? And if you don't--well,
a pocketful of lead will perhaps convince you!"

From the darkness ahead of them a figure followed the voice. Cleek could
dimly discern a tall, slouchy-shouldered man, clad in overalls, with a
cap pulled down close over his eyes, and in