of puffings, but still
unable to see clearly whence they came, he was forced in bewilderment to
resume his march. But he had no sooner entered the next bend of that
obscure and winding avenue than the most lamentable, lusty cries assailed
him. Again he stood still, blinded by his own light. Somewhere at hand
a citizen was being beaten, for vague, quick-moving forms emerged into
the radiance of his lanthorn out of the deep violet of the night air.
The cries swelled, and died away, and swelled; and the mazed Cethru moved
forward on his way. But very near the end of his first traversage, the
sound of a long, deep sighing, as of a fat man in spiritual pain, once
more arrested him.

"Drat me!" he thought, "this time I will see what 'tis," and he spun
round and round, holding his lanthorn now high, now low, and to both
sides. "The devil an' all's in it to-night," he murmured to himself;
"there's some'at here fetchin' of its breath awful loud." But for his
life he could see nothing, only that the higher he held his lanthorn the
more painful grew the sound of the fat but spiritual sighing. And
desperately, he at last resumed his progress.

On the morrow, while he still slept stretched on his straw pallet, there
came to him a member of the Watch.

"Old man, you are wanted at the Court House; rouse up, and bring your
lanthorn."

Stiffly Cethru rose.

"What be they wantin' me fur now, mester?"

"Ah!" replied the Watchman, "they are about to see if they can't put an
end to your goings-on."

Cethru shivered, and was silent.

Now when they reached the Court House it was patent that a great affair
was forward; for the Judges were in their robes, and a crowd of
advocates, burgesses, and common folk thronged the careen, lofty hall of
justice.

When Cethru saw that all eyes were turned on him, he shivered still more
violently, fixing his fascinated gaze on the three Judges in their
emerald robes.

"This then is the prisoner," said the oldest of the Judges; "proceed with
the indictment!"

A little advocate in snuff-coloured clothes rose on little legs, and
commenced to read:

"Forasmuch as on the seventeenth night of August fifteen hundred years
since the Messiah's death, one Celestine, a maiden of this city, fell
into a cesspool in the Vita Publica, and while being quietly drowned, was
espied of the burgess Pardonix by the light of a lanthorn held by the old
man Cethru; and, forasmuch as, plunging in, the said Par