tor said.
"What kind of things would you be likely to buy for your family in the
country?"

"Well, I should say a cooking pan to begin with, and a few yards of warm
stuff for making my mother a skirt."

"Well, buy the cooking pan first and sling it across your shoulder, and
then as we wander about we can look in the shops and it will seem as if
we were on the search for articles that we had been told to purchase; it
would be better than sauntering about without any apparent object.
But first let us walk briskly towards the side of the town facing the
citadel. The Strada Vecchia is the one that I want to examine first."

The knowledge that he had gained from the plan of the city enabled
Hector to find the street without their having to ask any questions.

"Now, buy your cooking pan at the next smith's shop you come to, and
then we can go slowly along making our observations."

They soon found that the street they had entered was, for the most part,
deserted by its inhabitants. The shops were all closed, the road was
strewn with fallen chimneys and balconies, and here and there were
yawning holes showing how severely the street had suffered when the
artillery duel was going on between the guns on the walls and those
of the citadel. A short distance down the street a chain was stretched
across it, and here a musketeer was pacing up and down on guard. Two
others could be seen at the farther end of the street, where there was
a gateway in the wall, now closed up with sandbags piled thickly against
it.

"We will see if the other streets are similarly guarded."

This was found to be so, sentries being placed in every street running
down to the wall in this quarter.

"So far so good, Paolo. I do not think that matters could have been
better for us. The next thing is to buy a tool with which we can wrench
open a door or the shutter of a window; but a door will be best, because
we could not work at a shutter without running the risk of being seen by
a sentinel, while in a doorway we should be screened from observation.
These houses in the Strada Vecchia are old, and the doors ought not to
give us much trouble."

"Some of these old locks are very strong, master. I should think that
it would be easier to cut out one of the panels than to force the door
open."

"Possibly it would, but it is not an easy thing to get the saw to work.
We should have to bore a hole large enough for the saw to go through
before we could use