Within the bank all was dark; by the feeble rays of the street lamp without the outlines of the desks could be just discerned.
"Hey, Mike! Mike!" whispered Billy Cutts again, stealthily advancing.
The words had scarcely left his lips, than through the interior of the Lispenard Bank there shot out a blaze of light.
"Throw up your hands, there!" cried a stern voice before them. "Up with them, or you are dead men!"
With a low cry, Elijah Callister sprang toward the door.
Before them, in the full blaze of the lighted gas, stood Frank Mansfield and five policemen at his side, with glittering revolvers in their outstretched hands, aimed directly at the burglars' heads.
"Halt, there!"
Behind them, entering by the door through which Callister had turned to flee, a second posse of police was seen, headed by the pale determined figure of Detective Hook, while following close behind were three ragged street boys, easily recognized as our old friends Barney, the bootblack, Sandy and Garibaldi the Bats in the Wall.
"Those are your men, officers!" cried Frank, in clear, ringing tones. "That's Callister—the tall one by the door—that's the head of the gang who robbed the Webster bank, and sought to throw the crime on me!"