"And will again, _ma petite_," said Cleek, for he indeed it was. "Jeannette, be merciful, as you hope for mercy. Let me get my friend here through the door into the boat and you shall deliver me up to Margot. I will come back--I swear it--if you set him free." "Free to bring the gendarmes on us--_pas si bête_. No, my friend," laughed the girl. "He will not do that, I swear it. Did Cleek the Cracksman ever break his oath?" "No, but Cleek of what do you call your quarters--eh--ah--Scot-land Yard--eh--yes, _he_ might!" said the girl. Swiftly, in a torrent of French patois that Narkom could not follow, Cleek pleaded, disregarding the Superintendent's own pleas to exchange his life for that of Cleek himself. Minutes passed and the girl remained obdurate. Suddenly she looked up. "They say you have a white-and-gold lady to be your woman over on the other side--is it not so?" Cleek shivered and shut his eyes in a veritable agony of spirit at this reference to Ailsa Lorne--his adored Ailsa who awaited him in the rose-clad riverside home, and who within a few brief days was to have been his wife. A low, sibilant laugh burst from Jeannette's painted lips. "Eh, but she would not like to know of this little meeting, my friend? She would scorn the poor Jeannette, eh? But it is Jeannette who holds you like that!" She snapped her finger and thumb in triumph, and as the bursts of merriment above them seemed to roll nearer, Cleek grew very, very still. This was indeed the end, and though he would die for the sake of his friend, the blow would be none the less bitter. Jeannette stood silent, too, looking at him. One, two, perhaps three minutes passed before she turned again. "Well, _mon ami_, I don't know that I owe anything to Margot up there. What happens to me if I let you go? How do you pay me--eh?" "Jeannette, you will? You have only to tell me what to do in return." Cleek's voice trembled despite himself at this shadow of renewed hope, and Jeannette flushed in the dark. "Bah, but I am the fool she calls me," she muttered, "But death comes soon enough. Pay me----" She came close to him, thrusting her face close to his. "No lover have I. I am old and plain; you are Cleek, once the lover of Margot the Queen. Kiss me! Nay, as you value your life and that of your friend there, kiss me as you would your woman over there--that is the price you shall pay!" For one brief second Cleek's soul revolted. The thought of offering his lips--which he held sacred to the one fair woman who had led him up from depths such as these to her own pure level--sickened him. He would sooner yield life itself. Yet Narkom's life depended on his own, and with a secret prayer for forgiveness he bent over, took the thin, shaking figure literally into his arms, and kissed the painted lips, not once, but thrice. "God bless you, Jeannette!" he murmured. "He alone can reward you."