He passed the door, and was surprised to find himself in the open air on the roof of the hall, the stars above him, and the night breeze cooling his brow. The steeply-pitched lead ended in a broad, flat gutter, fenced by a rail fixed in the parapet. The servant led him along the path which this gutter provided to a door in the wall of the great round tower that rose twenty feet above the house. This gave entrance to a small chamber--one of those commonly found between the two skins of such old buildings--which served both for landing and ante-room. From it the dark opening of a winding staircase led upwards on one hand; on the other a low-browed door masked the course of the downward flight. Across this closet--bare as bare walls could make it--the grey-bearded servant led him in two strides, and opening a farther door introduced him into the chamber which had seen so much good company. It was a gloomy, octagonal room of great size, lighted in the daytime by four deep-sunk windows, and occupying--save for such narrow closets as that through which they entered--a whole storey of the tower. The lanthorn did but make darkness visible, but Solomon proceeded to light two rushlights that stood in iron sconces on the wall, and by their light the Lieutenant discerned three truckle-beds laid between two of the windows. He could well believe, so vast was the apartment, that fourteen had not cumbered its bareness. At this date a couple of chests, as many stools, a bundle of old spears and a heavy three-legged table made up, with some dingy, tattered hangings, the whole furniture of the chamber. The old serving-man set down the lanthorn and looked about him sorrowfully. "Thirty-four I've seen sleep here," he said. "The Governor of Poitou, and the Governor of Perigord, and the four Vicomtes of the Limousin, and twenty-eight gentles in truckles." "Twenty-eight?" the Lieutenant questioned, measuring in some astonishment the space with his eye. "But your master said----" "Twenty-eight, by your leave," the man answered obstinately. "And every man his dog! A gentleman was a gentleman then, and a Vicomte a Vicomte. But since that cursed battle at Coutras set us down and put these Huguenots up, there is an end of gentry almost. Ay, thirty--was it thirty, I said?" "Four, you said. Thirty-four," des Ageaux answered, smiling. "Good-night." The man shook his head sombrely, bade them goodnight, and closed the door on them.