discovered by quite another sort of folk than the allies of Baboushka,
and the alarm was given.

To advance was to invite an arrest which would result in no pleasant
investigation.

He had tarried too long as it was. The watchman's
horn--tute-horn--sounded at the bridge and the squad responded through
their commander; whistles also shrilled, being police signals. The
student was perceived. It was a critical moment. The next moment he
would be challenged, and at the next, have a carbine or sabre levelled
at his breast. He retired up the alley, precipitately, wondering where
the persons whom he befriended had disappeared so quickly.

A very faint light gleamed from deeply within, at the end of a crooked
passage through a lantern-like projection at a corner. A number of iron
hooks bristled over his head as if for carcasses at a butchers, although
their innocent use was to hang beds on them to air. On a tarnished plate
he deciphered "ARTISTES' ENTRANCE," and while perplexed, even as the
gendarmes appeared at the mouth of this blind-alley, a long and taper
hand was laid on his arm and a voice, very, very sweet, though in a mere
murmur, said irresistibly:

"Come! come in, or you will be lost!" He yielded, and was drawn into a
corridor under the oriel window, where the air was pungent with the reek
of beer, tobacco-smoke, orange-peel, cheese and caraway seeds.