It was now about two o'clock, and snowing heavily. The stranger, placing himself under the guidance of the boy, followed him around into Orange street. Pausing before a steep cellar, exceedingly narrow, dark and deep, the young thief whispered-- 'This is the _forty-foot cave_--the entrance into the _dark vaults_.[1] You have been down, I suppose?' The stranger answered in the negative. 'Then come on, if you are not afraid,' said the boy--and followed by his companion, he cautiously began to descend into the dark and dreary chasm. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: It is a fact by no means generally known that there was, beneath the section of New York called the 'Five Points,' a vast subterranean cavern, known as the _dark vaults_. There mysterious passages run in many directions, for a great distance, far beneath the foundations of the houses. Some have supposed that the place was excavated in time of war, for the secretion of ammunition or stores, while others think it was formerly a deep sewer of the city. In these dark labyrinths _daylight_ never _shone_: an eternal night prevailed. Yet it swarmed with human beings, who passed their lives amid its unwholesome damps and gloomy horrors. It served as a refuge for monstrous crimes and loathsome wretchedness. The Police rarely ventured to explore its secret mysteries--for Death lurked in its dark passages and hidden recesses. The horrors of this awful place have never heretofore been thoroughly revealed; and now the author of this work will, for the first time, drag forth the ghastly inmates of this charnel-house into the clear light of day.] CHAPTER VI _The Dark Vaults--Scenes of Appalling Horror--The Dead Man--The Catechism--arrangements for a Burglary._ Down, down, they went, far into the bowels of the earth; groping their way in darkness, and often hazarding their necks by stumbling upon the steep and slippery steps. At length the bottom of the 'forty-foot cave' was reached; and the boy grasping the hand of his follower, conducted him thro' a long and circuitous passage. Intense darkness and profound silence reigned; but after traversing this passage for a considerable distance, lights began to illumine the dreary path, and that indistinct hum which proceeds from numerous inhabitants, became audible. Soon the two explorers emerged into a large open space, having the appearance of a vast vault, arched overhead with rough black masonry, which was supported by huge pillars of brick and stone. Encircling this mighty _tomb_, as it might be properly called, were numerous small hovels, or rather _caves_, dug into the earth; and these holes were swarming with human beings.