He suddenly felt irritated with the sun and the colour and began to walk up and down the path. The uneasiness that he had felt all the afternoon increased; he began to wish that he had not allowed Tony to go down alone. Nothing, of course, could happen to the boy; it was absurd that he should imagine things, and probably it was due to the heat. Every now and again some sound came up from the town—a cry, a bell, the noisy rattle of a cart, and it seemed like an articulate voice; the town seemed to have a definite personality, some great animal basking there in the sun, and its face was the face of Morelli. He sat down on one of the seats in the shadiest part of the garden; the trees hung over it in thick dark shadows, and at times a breeze pushed like a bird’s wing through their branches. All around him the path was dark, beyond it was a broad belt of light. He must have gone asleep, because almost immediately he seemed to be dreaming. The shadows on the path receded and advanced as a door opens and shuts; the branches of the trees bent lower and lower. It seemed in his dream that he recognised something menacing in their movement, and he rose and passed through the garden and in a moment he was in the town. Here too it was dark, and in the market-place the tower stood, a black mass against the grey sky behind it, and the streets twisted like snakes up and down about the hill. And then suddenly he was at Morelli’s house, he recognised the strange carving and the crooked, twisting shape of the windows. The door opened easily to his hand and he passed up the stairs. The house was quite dark; he had to grope to find his way. And then he was opposed by another door, something studded with nails—he could feel them with his hands—and heavily barred. He heard voices on the other side of the door, low, soft whispers, and then he recognised them, they were Tony and Morelli. He was driven by an impulse to beat the door and get at them; some fear clutched at his throat so that he felt that Tony was in terrible danger. In a minute he knew that he would be too late. He knocked, at first softly and then furiously; for a moment the voices stopped, and then they began again. No one paid any attention to his knocking. He knew with absolute certainty that in a few minutes the door would open, but first something would happen. He began to beat on the door with his fists and to call out; the house was, for the rest, perfectly silent. And then suddenly he heard Morelli’s laugh. There was a moment’s silence, and then Tony screamed, a terrified, trembling scream; the door began to open.