"All right," whispered the surgeon; "and my own carriage will be in this street at three precisely. We shall have plenty of time--there's no one stirring till five, and its dark till seven." The surgeon and the body-snatchers then scaled the railing, and in a few moments stood in the churchyard. The Resurrection Man addressed himself to his two confederates and the surgeon, and said, "Do you lie snug under the wall here while I go forward and see how we must manage the door." With these words he crept stealthily along, amidst the tomb-stones, towards the church. The surgeon and the Cracksman seated themselves upon a grave close to the wall; and the Buffer threw himself flat upon his stomach, with his ear towards the ground. He remained in this position for some minutes, and then uttered a species of low growl as if he were answering some signal which caught his ears alone. "The skeleton-keys won't open the side-door, the Resurrection Man says," whispered the Buffer, raising his head towards the surgeon and the Cracksman. He then laid his ear close to the ground once more, and resumed his listening posture. In a few minutes he again replied to a signal; and this time his answer was conveyed by means of a short sharp whistle. "It appears there is a bolt; and it will take a quarter of an hour to saw through the padlock that holds it," observed the Buffer in a whisper. Nearly twenty minutes elapsed after this announcement. The surgeon's teeth chattered with the intense cold; and he could not altogether subdue certain feelings of horror at the idea of the business which had brought him thither. The almost mute correspondence which those two men were enabled to carry on together--the methodical precision with which they performed their avocations--and the coolness they exhibited in undertaking a sacrilegious task, made a powerful impression upon his mind. He shuddered from head to foot:--his feelings of aversion were the same as he would have experienced had a loathsome reptile crawled over his naked flesh. "It's all right now!" suddenly exclaimed the Buffer, rising from the ground. "Come along." The surgeon and the Cracksman followed the Buffer to the southern side of the church where there was a flight of steps leading up to a side-door in a species of lobby, or lodge. This door was open; and the Resurrection Man was standing inside the lodge. As soon as they had all entered the sacred edifice, the door was carefully closed once more. We have before said that the night was cold: but the interior of the church was of a chill so intense, that an icy feeling appeared to penetrate to the very back-bone. The wind murmured down the aisle; and every footstep echoed, like a hollow sound in the distance, throughout the spacious pile. "Now, sir," said the Resurrection Man to the surgeon, "it is for you to tell us whereabouts we are to begin."