Choosing the minor trouble, our party trusted to their own legs; and, after picking their way through sludge and mire, along murky alleys that branched off into wharves and quays, and up slippery by-ways that looked like paved staircases without regular steps, the four emerged upon an open space in front of a noble church. Leaving this on their left hand, they turned short into a place that wore something the appearance of a stable-yard,--with this difference, that there were neither steeds nor stabling to be seen; but instead there were blank walls, enclosing a kind of court adjoining a huge old mansion, and beyond there was a steep descent leading down to the sea-side. On ringing a bell that hung beside a gate in the wall enclosure, the door opened apparently of itself, and a dismal scream ensued. The scream proceeded from a sea-gull, peering out of a kind of pen formed by a wooden paling in one corner of a grass-grown patch, half cabbage-garden, half excavated earth and rock; and the mysterious opening of the door was explained by a connecting cord pulled by some unseen hand within a smaller house that stood near to the huge old mansion. From the house appeared, advancing towards us, the two bachelor brothers, who welcomed our friend and his three companions with grave Italian courtesy. Understanding the curiosity the four felt to see their premises, they did the honors of their place, with a minuteness as politely considerate towards the strangers as it was gratifying to the interest felt by them.