They set up a many-throated cheer and flocked out with her upon the
floor; and in one instant feet were flying, skirts were whirling,
laughter and jest mingling with waving arms and kicking toes, and the
whole place was in one mad riot of delirious joy.

And in the midst of this there rolled up suddenly a voice crying, as
from the bowels of the earth, "Hola! Hola! La la! loi!" the cry of the
Apache to his kind.

"Mother of delights! It is one of us, and it comes from the sewer
passage--from the sewer!" shrilled out Marise, as the dancers halted and
Margot ran, with fleet steps, towards the bar. "Listen! listen! They
come to you, Margot--Serpice and Gaston. The work is done."

"And before even Clodoche or von Hetzler have arrived!" she replied
excitedly. "Give them light, give them welcome. Be quick!"

Marise ducked down, loosened the fastenings of the trap-door, flung it
back, and, leaning over the gap with a light in her hand, called down
into the darkness, "Hola! Hola! La! la! loi! Come on, comrades, come
on!"

The caller obeyed instantly. A hand reached up and gripped the edge of
the flooring, and out of the darkness into the light emerged the figure
of a man in a leather cap and the blue blouse of a mechanic--a pale,
fox-faced, fox-eyed fellow, with lank, fair hair, a brush of ragged,
yellow beard, and with the look and air of the sneak and spy indelibly
branded upon him.

It was Cleek.

"Clodoche!" exclaimed Marise, falling back in surprise.

"Clodoche!" echoed Margot. "Clodoche--and from the sewers?"

"Yes--why not?" he answered, his tongue thick-burred with the accent of
Alsace, his shifting eyes flashing toward the huge window behind the
bar, where, in the moonlight, the narrow passage leading down to the
door of "The Twisted Arm" gaped evilly between double rows of scowling,
thief-sheltering houses. "Name of the fiend! Is this the welcome you
give the bringer of fortune, Margot?"

"But from the sewer?" she repeated. "It is incomprehensible, _cher
ami_. You were to pilot von Hetzler over from the Cafe Dupin to the
square beyond there"--pointing to the window--"to leave him waiting a
moment while you came on to see if it were safe for him to enter; and
now you come from the sewer--from the opposite direction entirely!"

"Mother of misfortunes! You had done the same yourself--you, Lantier;
you, Clopin; you, Cadarousse; any of you--had you been in my boots," he
made answer. "I stole a leaf from your ow