.

Ulick stopped at a beautiful Gothic edifice, built about a small
court-yard, in which a score of the green-jerkined guardsmen were
lounging. In a corner stood a wooden cistern for the collection of
rain-water from the roof-spouts. Ulick drew a pannikin of water and
offered it to Constans that he might bathe his face, which was badly
puffed and marked. How reviving, the touch of the cool, clean liquid!
Constans arose, mightily refreshed; then, in response to his guide's
look, he followed him into the main hallway of the house and up the
broad stairs.

The building, judging from its size and appointments, must have been the
dwelling of one of the richest members of the ancient plutocracy, and
the traces of a splendid luxury were to be seen on all sides. The
colored marbles underfoot, the gilding overhead, the gorgeous, albeit
torn and weather-stained tapestries that covered the walls--these things
were eloquent of a pristine magnificence that could hardly have been
equalled, even in this city of palaces. Constans kept looking about him
with all his eyes, but Ulick strode along indifferently. Every son of
the Doomsmen might possess a dwelling measurably as fine as this if he
chose to look for it, but from a practical point of view the sole
qualification for a man's house was that it should be standing in plumb
and tolerably weather-proof. Gold-leaf and silken hangings would not
keep out the rain, and it was folly to spend time in making repairs.
When a house became uninhabitable it was a simple matter to move into
another.

The apartment into which they now entered was long and lofty. The thick
curtains remained drawn before the windows, excluding so much of the
light that Constans had great difficulty in finding his way about. Then,
his eyes adjusting themselves to the obscurity, he saw before him a
divan piled high with pillows. Propped up against them was the figure of
an old man.

And such a man! In his prime he must have been a very colossus of
strength and stature, and even now, in his senility, the muscles that
had made terrible those great limbs could be plainly traced. For this
was Dominus Gillian, whose name had been first a byword and then a
terror, and even now was a power to conjure with; Dom Gillian, renegade
and hero, gallows-bird and world-builder, but ever and in all things a
man, as all other men will bear witness.

He knew his favorite grandchild, and smiled as Ulick respectfully raised
and kis