At length, however, the sounds of traffic in the streets began to diminish sensibly, and finally they died away altogether; the good people of Cuzco seemed to have gone home to bed at last; so, throwing off his disguise for the moment, Dick essayed to climb the high railing which was now the only barrier between them and liberty. The task was not at all difficult, except when it came to his clambering over the complicated arrangement of spikes at the top; but a steady head and a little patience were all that were needed; and in about two minutes young Chichester was standing on the pavement outside, once more in his clerical disguise, receiving the few articles that Phil passed through the railings to him before the latter in his turn climbed over the obstacle. As it chanced, they only just accomplished the feat in time, for as Stukely reached the pavement on the right side of the railing, footsteps were heard approaching, and Phil scarcely had time to don his priest's habit, draw the hood well over his head, and conceal his bar and pruning knife in the ample folds of the garment when a belated frequenter of one of the numerous posadas of the city staggered past, humming in maudlin tones the refrain of a bacchanalian song which he cut short when he realised that the two dark figures which he jostled were, as he supposed, connected with the dread institution which lay back there frowning in the distance. As soon as this roysterer was fairly out of the way the adventurers looked about them to get their bearings. Their purpose was to leave the city by the same way that they had come into it, and then strike eastward until they again came to the river, which, in accordance with Vilcamapata's instructions, they were to follow to its source. Recalling the several twists and turns which they had taken through the building after their encounter with the jailer that morning, they finally decided that they must follow the footsteps of the drunken man until they reached the first street bearing to the right, which would be the street by which they had been conducted to the Inquisition that morning; once arrived in which they were convinced that they could find their way over the remainder of the route. Accordingly they started briskly off, and in the course of a few minutes reached the street which they sought, and which they presently verified as the right one by passing the great entrance gateway by which they had been admitted to the Inquisition building that morning. That morning! It seemed much more like a week ago! Still walking briskly, yet without exhibiting undue haste, and meeting only an occasional wayfarer here and there who took no notice of them except to stand respectfully aside and yield the narrow pavement to them as they passed, the two Englishmen wound hither and thither along the streets, occasionally identifying some building that they remembered to have passed before, until, in a little, narrow