Cranajour, who had been given the lantern to carry, was attracted to these boxes: he lifted the cover of one of them and drew back wonderstruck, for the box was full of shining gold pieces! Nibet, with a jab and thrust in the back, interrupted Cranajour's contemplation of this fortune: "Nothing to faint over!" he growled. "You're not such a simpleton then! You know the value of yellow boys? All right, then, I'll give you one or two, if you do your job all right! But," continued the warder, leading his companion to the further end of the second cellar, "you will have to look out if you present your banker with one of those pieces, for the little bits of shiny won't pass everywhere--you've got to keep your eye open--and jolly wide, too!" Cranajour nodded comprehension: "False money! False money!" he murmured. There was a very strong big door: an iron bar kept it closed. Nibet raised it with Cranajour's help. Through the door the two men passed into a long dark passage, swept by a sharp rush of air. The floor of it was paved, and at the side of it flowed a pestilential stream, carrying along in its slow-moving water a quantity of miscellaneous filth: it was thick as soup with impurities. "The little collecting sewer of the Cite," whispered Nibet. Pointing to a grey patch in the distance he put his mouth to Cranajour's ear: "See the daylight yonder? That's where the sewer discharges itself into the Seine: it's there the boatman and his load will be waiting for us presently." Nibet stopped dead; drew Cranajour back by the sleeve, and stepped stealthily backwards to the massive doors of the cellar. An unaccustomed noise had alarmed the warder. In profound silence the two men stood listening intently. There was no mistake! The sound of sharp regular steps could be clearly heard coming from that part of the sewer opposite the opening. "Someone!" said Cranajour, who was all on the alert, as he had been in his attic, watching the shadow and its vagaries on the roofs of the Palais de Justice. Nibet nodded. The light from a dark lantern gleamed on the damp, slimy walls of the subterranean passageway. "Come inside," murmured Nibet, in an almost inaudible voice; and, with infinite precaution, he closed the massive portal between the cellar and the sewer-way. In safe hiding the two men could watch the approaching intruder: they had extinguished their lantern, and were peering through the badly joined wood of the solid door. Friend or foe? An individual moved into view. The reflected light of his lantern lit up the vaulting of the sewer-way, and showed up his face. The man was young, fair, wore a small moustache! Hardly had he passed the cellar door when Nibet gripped Cranajour's arm and growled--intense rage was expressed in grip and tone--"It's he! Again! The journalist of the Dollon affair, of the Depot business--Jerome Fandor! Ah.... This time we'll see!..." Nibet's hand plunged into his trouser pocket.