The moon, which just then began to rise, threw a dim and dusky light over the long, narrow, squalid lines of building, which had formed the abode of the banished Israelites. The sheds and stalls on which they had exposed their tattered ware for sale were torn down, and left lying in the streets. Heavier and inferior articles of property, such as in the general abundance of plunder had not been thought worth carrying away, were strewed up and down, and here and there, for sport, had been gathered in heaps and set fire to. Nothing living stirred, but an amazing swarm of the black house-rats--which had gone on multiplying, in spite of Papal fulmination, during the plague--dark and obscene as the hillocks of litter over which they gambolled. It seemed a locality which, in such a time of terror and contagion, the boldest man might have felt a dislike to enter. "We shall not have failed above, my lord," said Jacopo. "And, at worst, it is but fording the river higher up, which would be safer a thousand times than passing here. It is tempting fortune to approach a place like this." "In Heaven's name, by the north bank be it then," returned Di Vasari; "for we already lose time." And, leading the way by the Piazza della Gracia, and through the Borgo Ogni Santo, in a few minutes the travellers had again cleared the city by the Porto Pisano, now the Porto el Prata. Resuming here their former rapid pace, they kept the high-road some half mile towards Cajano; then turned southward once more where the little rivulet, the Torrente Terzolle, crossed their path; and kept the edge of the stream as it darted through a copse of Alpine trees, to empty itself into the main river. "This is the spot, my lord," said Jacopo, as they reached a point where the wood grew thickest; throwing himself from his horse, to clear the way, and assist the progress of his master. The Chevalier sprang lightly down; he paused for no assistance; and, in a few moments, both travellers had halted upon the banks of the Arno. CHAPTER II. "It is late, and that castle seems lulled in sleep, But within its walls are tapers gleaming; And along its apartments the females creep, With steps all hush'd, and eyes that are streaming." For oh! softly glides that serpent, whose sting is the surest death; and smooth shows that dark water, which has blackest rocks beneath it. There is silence, and calmness, and all is still, without the walls of the Arestino Palace; but a volcano of fever and of passion--of fierceness, rage, and fury--flames within!