The second rider was a boy, whose black and scarlet liveries--the well-known colors of all servitors of the Scottish crown--were but imperfectly hidden by the frieze cloak which had been cast over them, evidently for the purposes of concealment, rather than of comfort; yet he, too, like the gallant whom he followed--if any faith was to be placed in the evidence of raven hair and olive complexion--owed his birth to some more southern clime. After winding rapidly through several dim and unfrequented lanes, the leading horseman, checking his speed, gazed around him with a doubtful and bewildered eye. “_Madre di Dio_,” he exclaimed at length, “what a night is here; a thousand curses on this learned fool, that he must dwell in such a den of thieves as this; or rather a thousand curses on the blind and heretical Scots, that drive a man of wisdom, beyond their shallow comprehension, to bed with the very outcasts of society. Pietro, what ho!” and he raised his voice above the key in which he had pitched his soliloquy, “knowest thou the dwelling of this sage--this Johan Damietta? methought that I had noted the spot, yet have these sordid lanes banished the recollection. _Presto_, time fails already.” Without uttering a syllable in reply, the page sprung from his horse, and pointed to the doorway of a mansion, dilapidated even more than those in its vicinity, yet bearing in its site the marks of having been constructed in former days for the residence of some proud baron. Nor even now--although all the appliances of comfort were utterly neglected, although the casements were void of glass, and the chimneys sent up no volumes from a cheerful hearth--were the external defences of the pile forgotten; heavy bars of iron crossed and recrossed the deep-set embrasure which once had held the windows, and the oaken gate was clenched with many a massive nail and plate of rusted iron. The cavalier alighted, cast the rein to his servitor, and with the single word “Prudence,” ascended the stone steps, and struck thrice at measured intervals upon the wicket with his rapier’s hilt. The door flew open, but without the agency, as it appeared, of any living being, and, as the visiter entered, was closed again behind him with a heavy crash.