Jarker’s hiding-place, or rather this entrance to his hiding-place, owed much of its strength to its very openness; for, with the house and cellar-doors as it were free to the neighbourhood, many of the other tenants of the court even coming at times for water, no one would suspect the existence of a secret lair, though a careful examination of the long deep bin, now that attention was so fully directed to it, soon robbed the spot of its mystery.
“Crowbar,” said the sergeant abruptly, and a man departed in search of the implement; while one whispered to another his opinion that, if there was another way out, they were done, after all.
But now a new-comer forced her way upon the scene, after quite a battle with the constable on duty at the head of the stairs; and but for the request of Mr Sterne, she would not have obtained her desire. And now bitterly in French ma mère reproached her son for betraying her secret, though he as eagerly denied it, appealing to the curate, who freely exonerated the young man from having made any communications to the police.
“But what is the secret, ma mère?” he said to her in her own tongue.
“Come away, come away,” she whispered, wringing her hands; but Jean would not move, and the old woman was compelled to be a spectator of what followed.
A few blows from the crowbar, when it was brought, shivered the thin end stone to pieces, and Jean shuddered as he felt the cold damp air rush through the black opening, as the sergeant exclaimed:
“That’s sewers, my lads: there’s another way out. Now, who’ll go first?”
No one moved; but ma mère groaned.
“Who wants promotion?” said the sergeant again.
The muttering that followed seemed to intimate that all three of the men present wanted it, but not at the cost of thrusting his body into the black hole before him.