Thankful was he when they came in sight of the brown walls of Casale. These surged before them almost suddenly in the plain as they took a bend of the road; for the city's level position was such as to render it inconspicuous from afar. The road led straight on to the San Stefano Gate, towards which they clattered over the drawbridge spanning the wide moat. There was a guard-house in the deep archway, and the door of this stood open revealing some three or four soldiers lounging within. But they kept a loose and careless guard, for these were peaceful times. One of them, a young man in a leather haqueton, but bare of head, sauntered forward as far as the doorway to fling a greeting at the muleteer, which was taken by the fellow as permission to pass on. From that gateway, cool and cavernous, they emerged into one of the streets of the busy capital of the warlike State of Montferrat, which at one time, none so far distant, had bidden fair to assume the lordship of Northern Italy. They proceeded slowly now, perforce. The crooked street, across which the crazy houses seemed to lean towards each other so as to exclude the sunlight from all but a narrow middle line, was thronged with people of all degrees. It was ever a busy thoroughfare, this street of San Stefano, leading from the gate of that name to the Cathedral Square, and from his post of vantage on the back of the now ambling mule, Bellarion, able at last to sit unshaken, looked about him with deep interest upon manifestations of life known to him hitherto through little more than the imagination which had informed his extensive reading. It was market-day in Casale, and before the shops the way was blocked by trestle tables, on which the merchants displayed their wares, shouting their virtues to lure the attention of the wayfarers. Through this they came, by low and narrow archways, to an even greater bustle in the open space before the cathedral, founded, as Bellarion knew, some seven hundred years before by Liutprand, King of the Lombards. He turned to stare at the Roman architecture of the red and white façade, flanked by slender square towers, each surmounted by an hexagonal extinguisher roof. He was still considering the cruciform windows when the mule halted and recalled his attention. Ahead of him Fra Sulpizio was slipping to the ground, bestowing thanks and invoking the blessings of God upon the muleteer. Bellarion dismounted, a little stiff from his ride and very thankful to be at the end of it. The muleteer flung them a 'God guard you,' over his shoulder, and the string of mules passed on. 'And now, brother, we'll seek a supper, if you please,' the friar announced. To seek it was natural enough, but hardly, thought Bellarion, in the tavern across the square, whither he was led.