But as he pondered, he felt a sense of emptiness and loss. He thought that never before had he so longed to succeed in anything on which he had set his mind. He led the horse out and groomed and saddled it. When he was ready to set out, the host who owned the caravansary came up to him with a burning candle. He said in Frankish: “When you fell asleep last night, I had to take your light from you, but here you have it again.” Raniero betrayed nothing, but said very calmly: “It was wise of you to extinguish it.” “I have not extinguished it,” said the man. “I noticed that it was burning when you arrived, and I thought it was of importance to you that it should continue to burn. If you see how much it has decreased, you will understand that it has been burning all night.” Raniero beamed with happiness. He commended the host heartily, and rode away in the best of spirits. IV When Raniero broke away from the camp at Jerusalem, he intended to travel from Joppa to Italy by sea, but changed his mind after he had been robbed of his money, and concluded to make the journey by land. It was a long journey. From Joppa he went northward along the Syrian coast. Then he rode westward along the peninsula of Asia Minor, then northward again, all the way to Constantinople. From there he still had a monotonously long distance to travel to reach Florence. During the whole journey Raniero had lived upon the contributions of the pious. They that shared their bread with him mostly were pilgrims who at this time traveled _en masse_ to Jerusalem. Regardless of the fact that he nearly always rode alone, his days were neither long nor monotonous. He must always guard the candle flame, and on its account he never could feel at ease. It needed only a puff of breeze—a rain-drop—and there would have been an end to it. As Raniero rode over lonely roads, and thought only about keeping the flame alive, it occurred to him that once before he had been concerned with something similar. Once before he had seen a person watch over something which was just as sensitive as a candle flame. This recollection was so vague to him at first that he wondered if it was something he had dreamed. But as he rode on alone through the country, it kept recurring to him that he had participated in something similar once before. “It is as if all my life long I had heard tell of nothing else,” said he. One evening he rode into a city. It was after sundown, and the housewives stood in their doorways and watched for their husbands. Then he noticed one who was tall and slender, and had earnest eyes. She reminded him of Francesca degli Uberti.