The coiners were at their work. A man, seated on a stool before a desk, was entering accounts in a large book. That man was William Gawtrey. While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of the Dark Trade went on in its several departments. Apart--alone--at the foot of a long table, sat Philip Morton. The truth had exceeded his darkest suspicions. He had consented to take the oath not to divulge what was to be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the bandage was taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could fully comprehend the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild forms amidst which towered the burly stature of his benefactor. As the truth slowly grew upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but, deep compassion for his friend’s degradation swallowing up the horror of the trade, he flung himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the bond between them was indeed broken, and that the next morning he should be again alone in the world. Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful oaths, that from time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear, he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey, observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip’s sense of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with pistols and cutlasses except Morton, who suffered the weapons presented to him to lie unheeded on the table. “Courage, mes amis!” said Gawtrey, closing his book,--“Courage!--a few months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy ourselves for the rest of the days. Where is Birnie?” “Did he not tell you?” said one of the artisans, looking up. “He has found out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped Bouchard in all his five-franc pieces. He has promised to bring him to-night.” “Ay, I remember,” returned Gawtrey, “he told me this morning,--he is a famous decoy!” “I think so, indeed!” quoth a coiner; “for he caught you, the best head to our hands that ever les industriels were blessed with--sacre fichtre!” “Flatterer!” said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and pouring out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon--“To your healths!” Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in. “Where is your booty, mon brave?” said Gawtrey. “We only coin money; you coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to the devil!” The coiners, who liked Birnie’s ability (for the ci-devant engraver was of admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners, laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a malignant gleam of his dead eye. “If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without. You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave.”