which flashed round the yard, took in the warders under the
archways, and pointed them out with a wink to his three companions.

"Are there not narks about? Keep your peepers open and a sharp lookout.
Don't know me, Nanty parnarly, and soap me down for a priest, or I will
do for you all, you and your molls and your blunt."

"What, do you funk our blabbing?" said Fil-de-Soie. "Have you come to
help your boy to guy?"

"Madeleine is getting ready to be turned off in the Square" (the Place
de Greve), said la Pouraille.

"Theodore!" said Jacques Collin, repressing a start and a cry.

"They will have his nut off," la Pouraille went on; "he was booked for
the scaffold two months ago."

Jacques Collin felt sick, his knees almost failed him; but his three
comrades held him up, and he had the presence of mind to clasp his
hands with an expression of contrition. La Pouraille and le Biffon
respectfully supported the sacrilegious _Trompe-la-Mort_, while
Fil-de-Soie ran to a warder on guard at the gate leading to the parlor.

"That venerable priest wants to sit down; send out a chair for him,"
said he.

And so Bibi-Lupin's plot had failed.

_Trompe-la-Mort_, like a Napoleon recognized by his soldiers, had won
the submission and respect of the three felons. Two words had done it.
Your molls and your blunt--your women and your money--epitomizing
every true affection of man. This threat was to the three convicts an
indication of supreme power. The Boss still had their fortune in his
hands. Still omnipotent outside the prison, their Boss had not betrayed
them, as the false pals said.

Their chief's immense reputation for skill and inventiveness stimulated
their curiosity; for, in prison, curiosity is the only goad of these
blighted spirits. And Jacques Collin's daring disguise, kept up even
under the bolts and locks of the Conciergerie, dazzled the three felons.

"I have been in close confinement for four days and did not know that
Theodore was so near the Abbaye," said Jacques Collin. "I came in to
save a poor little chap who scragged himself here yesterday at four
o'clock, and now here is another misfortune. I have not an ace in my
hand----"

"Poor old boy!" said Fil-de-Soie.

"Old Scratch has cut me!" cried Jacques Collin, tearing himself free
from his supporters, and drawing himself up with a fierce look. "There
comes a time when the world is too many for us! The beaks gobble us up
at last."

The governor of the Con