ing
flesh. He pulled swiftly up stream, landed at the bridge, staggered up
the steps, and found Coventry at his post, but almost frozen, and sick
of waiting.

He staggered up to him and gasped out, "I've done the trick, give me the
brass, and let me go. I see a halter in the air." His teeth chattered.

But Coventry, after hoping and fearing for two hours and a half, had
lost all confidence in his associate, and he said, "How am I to know
you've done anything?"

"You'll see and you'll hear," said Cole. "Give me the brass."

"Wait till I see and hear," was the reply.

"What, wait to be nabbed? Another minute, and all the town will be out
after me. Give it me, or I'll take it."

"Will you?" And Coventry took out a pistol and cocked it. Cole recoiled.

"Look here," said Coventry; "there are one hundred and fifty sovereigns
in this bag. The moment I receive proof you have not deceived me, I give
you the bag."

"Here, where we stand?"

"Here, on this spot."

"Hush! not so loud. Didn't I hear a step?"

They both listened keenly. The fog was thick by this time.

Cole whispered, "Look down the river. I wonder which will go off first?
It is very cold; very." And he shook like a man in an ague.

Both men listened, numbed with cold, and quivering with the expectation
of crime.

A clock struck twelve.

At the first stroke the confederates started and uttered a cry. They
were in that state when everything sudden shakes men like thunder.

All still again, and they listened and shook again with fog and grime.

Sudden a lurid flash, and a report, dull and heavy, and something tall
seemed to lean toward them from the sky, and there was a mighty rushing
sound, and a cold wind in their faces, and an awful fall of masonry on
the water, and the water spurted under the stroke. The great chimney had
fallen in the river. At this very moment came a sharp, tremendous report
like a clap of thunder close at hand. It was so awful, that both bag and
pistol fell out of Coventry's hand and rung upon the pavement, and he
fled, terror-stricken.

Cole, though frightened, went down on his knees, and got the bag, and
started to run the other way.

But almost at the first step he ran against a man, who was running
toward him.

Both were staggered by the shock, and almost knocked down.

But the man recovered himself first, and seized Cole with a grip of
iron.

When Coventry had run a few steps he recovered his judgment so far as