He was soon in the fields and discovered two men walking along a path. He recognized Michel; he recognized the mountaineer's cloak. He took pains not to show himself; but he measured with a glance the distance and the obstacles that he would have to pass over in case of an alarm. The mountaineer stopped for a moment, talking earnestly. Magnani, with a determined effort of strength and activity, which under other circumstances would have been beyond the power of man, reached a point sufficiently near to overhear him, and found that he was talking of love and poetry. He allowed them to gain on him again, and, gliding through a narrow path among the blocks of lava that lay in great heaps at the entrance to the city, he arrived before them in the yard of the adjoining houses occupied by his family and Michel's. He watched his young friend and his suspicious guest enter the house. Then Magnani made the circuit of the houses, looking for a place where he could pass the night, unseen, but within hearing of the slightest noise, the slightest commotion inside. XXIX APPARITIONS Pier-Angelo had been notified by the princess and by a message from the monk of Mal Passo, that he must not be alarmed by his son's absence, and that, in case of danger, the young man would pass the night either at the convent with his uncle, or in the Marquis della Serra's palace. The princess would have preferred the latter course; but the necessity of showing absolute confidence in the brigand, concerning whose sensitiveness Fra Angelo had fully informed her, had triumphed over her anxiety. With great foresight she had sent for Magnani, and we have seen that she was justified in her reliance upon that excellent young man.