"Yes," replied the Beadle. "He is travelling in No Nightmare Land...." The Beadle laughed. But Emilet was alarmed. "You haven't snuffed him out, have you?" "No danger of it! He's only shamming!" "Off, then!" said Emilet. They rolled away at top speed. * * * * * The bandits' lair had been well chosen by their chiefs. It was a vast cellar, with a vaulted roof, and earthen walls bedewed with an icy humidity. Axes, mattocks, shovels, rakes, and watering cans lay scattered on the ground: these were worn out tools: they had not served their purpose for many a day. The lantern, a kind of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating weird shadows in that far-stretching space, too vast for the insufficient illumination. Directly beneath the cresset lantern, inside the circle of light it threw upon the ground, a fantastic group of human creatures pressed close to one another, drinking, shouting, chattering, singing. A clean-shaven man, whose suspicious little eyes were perpetually blinking, turned to a young woman. "Look here, Ernestine, my beauty, are you certain the Beadle understood that we should be waiting for him here?" Big Ernestine, who was crouching on the ground and warming her hands at a wood fire, throwing up clouds of smoke, shrugged her shoulders. "Stop it, do! You say things over and over again, like a clock, Nibet!... Since I've told you _yes_--_yes_ it is--there now, and be hanged to you!... You don't by chance fancy the Beadle has been made a mouthful of, do you?" Roars of laughter greeted this. Nibet was not one of the inner circle; he was not much of a favourite in the band of Numbers. It is true that they reckoned him a comrade, useful, faithful, that they felt safe with him; but they bore him a grudge because of his regular employment, because of his position, because he was an official.... And, first and last, his warder's uniform impressed the jail birds unpleasantly. But Nibet was not the man to allow himself to be intimidated. "All the same," said he, "I ask where the three of them have got to?... If they know the mushroom bed, they should have been back long ago!" He shouted to an old woman. "Eh, Toulouche, tell us the time!" But Mother Toulouche shook her head. "I haven't a watch!" There was a murmur of protestation. The seven or eight hooligans assembled there awaiting the return of the Beard and the Beadle, sent with Emilet to kidnap Jules, could not believe that. Mother Toulouche had told the truth. The Sailor caught the old woman by the shoulders and shook her, and went on shaking her.