"Strange enough! Just as we were about to search the tomb last night,[1] to be interrupted and scared from our object by a circumstance so unusual! The snug sum of $200,000, in plate, buried in a coffin!--an odd kind of sub-treasury! Wonder if there's any truth in the legend?" [1] See Episode, page 114 of the Empire City. As the gentleman thus soliloquized he fixed his eyes attentively upon the slab; but he did not see the approach of a man, wrapped in the thick folds of a cloak, and with a broad-brimmed hat over his brow,--a man who came noiselessly from the shadows and took his place at the opposite extremity of the slab, quietly folding his arms, as he fixed his gaze upon the Third of the Three. A wild sort of picture this: The gloomy church-yard, with its leafless trees, and tombstones half hidden among heaps of timber and of stone. Yonder, the church, looking like the grotesque creation of an enchanter's power, as hidden among uncouth scaffolding, it rises vague and shapeless into the sky. And here, by the tomb of the Van Huydens, two figures,--the Third of Three, who, in a deep revery, fixes his eyes upon the inscription--and the cloaked figure, whose steady gaze is centered upon the absent-minded gentleman. "Two hundred thousand buried in a coffin,"--soliloquized "the Third,"--"I wonder if I could not make a little search. The place is quiet,--no watchman near--" "Liar!" said a voice, in tones deep as the sound of an organ. "Learn that the Watcher always guards the vault of the Van Huydens:--learn that it is sacrilege to rob the dead." CHAPTER IX. THE END OF THE MARCH. As Dermoyne led Barnhurst forth into the open air, the false clergyman staggered like a drunken man. His tall and angular form shook like a reed; and Arthur, catching a glimpse of his countenance, saw that it was livid and distorted in every feature. "Do with me what you will," he said in broken accents. "The worst has come.--I do not care! Come; at last, you shall go home with me. Home!" He turned his steps up Broadway, leaning his weight on Arthur's arm as he staggered along. Terrible as had been the crimes of the wretch, Arthur pitied him. For a moment, only; for the dying cry of Alice was in his ear. "Your punishment begins," he whispered. And thus, up Broadway, they resumed their march through the city. They had not gone many paces from the church, when two forms sprang suddenly from the shadows of the scaffolding, both clad in dark overcoats, with caps drawn over their faces. They were the forms of those unknown persons who had followed Arthur and Barnhurst from the Battery over the city. One was lean, tall and sinewy in form; his quick, active, stealthy step, resembled the step of an Indian. The other was short and thick set, with broad chest and bow-legs. "Did yer see der Red Book, Dirk?" "O' coss I did; as he come out o' der church, his cloak opened, and I seed 'um under his arm. O' coss I did, Slung."