Gilbert looked up indifferently, and then, as there was no near building in sight, he turned inquiringly to his man. A sardonic smile played on Dunstan's lean dark face as he pointed to what Gilbert had taken for three haystacks. They were, indeed, nothing but conical straw huts standing a few steps aside from the road, thirty yards down the hill. The entrance to each was low and dark, and from the one issued wreaths of blue smoke, slowly rising in the still, cold air. At the same entrance a withered bough proclaimed that wine was to be had. A ditch beyond the furthest hut was full of water, and at some distance from it a rude shed of boughs had been set up to afford the horses of travellers some shelter from winter rain or summer sun. As Gilbert looked, a man came out, bowing himself almost double to pass under the low aperture. He wore long goatskin breeches and a brown homespun tunic, like a monk's frock, cut short above the knees, and girdled with a twisted thong. Shaggy black hair thatched his square head, and a thin black beard framed the yellow face, which had the fever-stricken look of the dwellers in the Campagna. Though this was the first halting-place of the kind to which Gilbert had come in the Roman plain, he was no longer easily surprised by anything, and he did not even smile as he rode forward and dismounted. Besides his own men he had with him the muleteer who acted as guide and interpreter, and without whom it was impossible for a foreigner to travel in Italy. The peasant bowed to the ground, and led Gilbert to the entrance of the hut where he usually served his customers with food and drink, and in the gloom within Gilbert saw a rough-hewn table and two benches standing upon the well-swept floor of beaten earth. But the Englishman made signs that he would sit outside, and the scanty furniture was brought out into the open air. The third hut was a refuge and a sleeping-place for travellers overtaken at nightfall on their way to the city. "The monk is asleep," said the peasant host, lifting his finger to his lips because Gilbert's men were talking loud near the entrance. Gilbert understood as much as that without his interpreter; for in those days the Provencal tongue was an accomplishment of all well-born persons, and it was not unlike certain dialects of Italy. "A monk?" repeated Gilbert, indifferently. "He calls himself one, and he wears a grey frock," answered the other. "But we are glad when he comes, for he brings us good fortune. And you may see that I speak the truth, since he came late in the night, and your lordship is the first guest at the huts this morning." "Then you know him well?" "Every one knows him," answered the man.