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 lit