"What's to be done!" he continued to murmur to himself, after a pause. "To wake the guardian of the gate, and demand an entrance, would be to excite attention, and subject myself, perhaps, to questionings. No, no! That, above all, must be avoided. And yet, see him I must to-night. Time presses. Should the devil, who has served me so well as yet, desert me now, and take flight, the coward! before a few inches of deal board, and a few pounds of hammered iron! Bolts and bars! _Bagatelles!_ Fortunately the old fox has taken up his earth near the gate. If I calculate aright, the hinder windows of his lodging must look out upon the moat; and I will try whether I cannot come to speech of him." "Fortuna, jade! Thou art propitious still, if yonder rays be those from the old ivy-owl's watch-lamp!" muttered the traveller once more to himself, as he looked towards a light, which apparently struggled to send its gleams through the thick haze, from a low window of one of the houses overhanging the dry moat, to the left of the gateway. "At all events, I'll even risk the venture; and if, after all, I am out in my reckoning, and should stumble either upon an amorous dame awaiting her adored, or a mad student seeking the philosopher's stone--should I appear as a spirit of love from above, or a spirit of darkness from below--_Cospetto!_ I'll play my part to the life, and find an entrance to this cursed town, spite of locked gates and barred posterns! The Virgin be praised! I am no schoolboy at my first adventure." "_Allons_, Briccone!" he cried, applying the spur to his jaded horse, which stood reeking thickly, in the misty air, from the effects of a long and rapid journey. "You must seek other quarters for the night, old boy!" The animal snorted, as its head was turned once more from the gateway, and moved unwillingly, as if endeavouring to resist the seeming attempt to undertake any further excursion that night: but the way was not long which it was destined to travel. Among the clay-built houses which formed the suburb, the traveller speedily discovered the projecting whisp of hay, announcing that the hovel, from the doorway of which it was suspended, offered accommodation, such as it was, for man and beast. Summoning from the interior a sleepy lad, in a dirty Hungarian costume, of full shirt-sleeves and broad trowsers, which once had been white, and confiding Briccone to his care, he returned to the gateway of the town. When he again stood upon the gateway bridge, the first care of the stranger was to stoop, and collect a quantity of small pebbles in the hollow of his left hand. Provided with this ammunition, he approached as near as he could towards the spot whence the light he had before remarked proceeded.