They were now between the moat and the wall of the town, rising, upon this northern face, in the very shadow of the castle rock. About them were roofs of houses. They went down a staircase of stone and came into a lane-like space. Before them sprang, huge and high, the burghers’ wall, with, on this side, no apparent gate, but a blankness of stone. On the parapet above, a sentinel went by, larger than life against the sky that was paling before the approach of the moon. Some sound perhaps had been made, at the moat or upon the stair between the houses; for now a guard with halberds, a dozen or more, came athwart their road with a peremptory challenge to halt. A word was given, the guard fell back. The four from the castle, followed by those who had met them at the moat, went on, walking in the shadow of the wall that seemed unbroken, a blank, unpierced solid. They had moved away from the most precipitous point of the hill of Roche-de-Frêne, but now they were bearing back. High above them, almost directly overhead, hung that part of the castle wall where was set the rock-gate. They came to a huge buttress springing inward from the city wall, almost spanning the way between it and the moat. Here, in the angle was what they sought. From somewhere sprang a dim light and showed a low and narrow opening, a gate more obscure even and masked than that by which they had left the castle. Here, too, awaited men; a word was given and the gate opened. A portcullis lifted, they passed under, passed outward. There was a sense of a gulf of air, and then of Montmaure’s watch-lights, staring up from the plain. As without the gate in the castle wall, so here, they stood upon a ledge of rock, masked by a portion of the cliff and by a growth of bush and vine. Behind them was Roche-de-Frêne, castle and town; before them the rock fell sheer for many feet to a base of earth so steep as to be nearly precipitous. This in turn sank by degrees to a broken strip, earth and boulder, and to a wood of small pines which merged with the once-cultivated plain. The dragon that lay about Roche-de-Frêne watched less closely here to the north. He could not get at Roche-de-Frêne from this side: he knew that no torrent of armed men could descend upon him here. His eyes could not read the two small, ambushed doors, out of which, truly, no torrent could come! Perhaps he was aware that the besieged might, some night-time, let down the cliff spy or messenger striving to make a way north to that distant and deaf King of France. If so, that daring one might not at all easily pass the watch that the dragon kept. Gaultier Cap-du-Loup and his Free Companions encamped in this northern quarter.