long
paved street. It made such a noise that the dog's feet could not be
heard any more. There were more lamps, too, and it seemed less gloomy
than up there under the plane-trees, though there were no lights in the
windows at that late hour.

"Now to the right," said Ercole, as they reached the back of Saint
Cecilia's at the Via Anicia.

"To the right!" Marcello called out a second later from under the hood.

"You seem to know the way," said the cabman to Ercole. "Why don't you
give me the address of the house at once and be done with it?"

"I know the house, but not the street, nor the number."

"I understand. Does your dog also know the house?"

To this question Ercole made no answer, for he considered that it was
none of the cabman's business, and, moreover, he regretted having shown
that he knew where his master was going. Marcello now gave the final
direction to the cabman, who drew up before a door in a wall, in a
narrow lane, where the walls were high and the doors were few. It was
the garden entrance to the little house in Trastevere.

Marcello got out, opened the door with the key he carried, and went in.
It was raining hard, and he disappeared into the darkness, shutting the
door behind him. It had a small modern lock with a spring latch that
clicked sharply as it shut. The cab had stopped with the door on the
left, and therefore on the side on which Ercole was sitting. Nino, the
dog, came up from behind, with his tongue hanging out, blood-red in the
feeble light of the cab's lamp; he put his head up above the low front
wheel to have a look at Ercole. Being satisfied, he at once lay down on
the wet stones, with his muzzle towards the door.

Two or three minutes passed thus, in total silence. The cab-horse hung
his head patiently under the driving rain, but neither stamped on the
paving stones nor shook himself, nor panted audibly, for he was a pretty
good horse, as cab-horses go, and was not tired.

Suddenly Nino growled without moving, the ominous low growl of a dog
that can kill, and Ercole growled at him in turn, making a sound
intended to impose silence. There was no reason why Nino should growl at
Marcello. But Nino rose slowly upon his quarters, as if he were about to
spring at the door, and his rough coat bristled along his back. Then
Ercole distinctly heard the latch click as it had done when Marcello
went in, and Nino put his muzzle to the crack of the closed door and
sniffed up and down it,