t to do with him we
seek. What shall we do, Andrea?"

Here the lackey put in his word. "Let us track him to the water's side,
to make sure. See, he hath come dripping all the way."

This advice was approved, and with very little difficulty they tracked
the man's course.

But soon they encountered a new enigma.

They had gone scarcely fifty yards ere the drops turned away from the
river, and took them to the gate of a large gloomy building. It was a
monastery.

They stood irresolute before it, and gazed at the dark pile.

It seemed to them to hide some horrible mystery.

But presently Andrea gave a shout. "Here be the drops again," cried he.
"And this road leadeth to the river."

They resumed the chase; and soon it became clear the drops were now
leading them home. The track became wetter and wetter, and took them
to the Tiber's edge. And there on the bank a bucketful appeared to have
been discharged from the stream.

At first they shouted, and thought they had made a discovery: but
reflection showed them it amounted to nothing. Certainly a man had been
in the water, and had got out of it in safety; but that man was not
Gerard. One said he knew a fisherman hard by that had nets and drags.
They found the fisherman and paid him liberally to sink nets in the
river below the place, and to drag it above and below; and promised him
gold should he find the body. Then they ran vainly up and down the river
which flowed so calm and voiceless, holding this and a thousand more
strange secrets. Suddenly Andrea, with a cry of hope, ran back to the
house.

He returned in less than half an hour.

"No," he groaned, and wrung his hands.

"What is the hour?" asked the lackey.

"Four hours past midnight."

"My pretty lad," said the lackey solemnly, "say a mass for thy friend's
soul: for he is not among living men."

The morning broke. Worn out with fatigue, Andrea and Pietro went home,
heart sick.

The days rolled on, mute as the Tiber as to Gerard's fate.

CHAPTER LXVII

It would indeed have been strange if with such barren data as they
possessed, those men could have read the handwriting on the river's
bank.

For there on that spot an event had just occurred, which, take it
altogether, was perhaps without a parallel in the history of mankind,
and may remain so to the end of time.

But it shall be told in a very few words, partly by me, partly by an
actor in the scene.

Gerard, then, after writing his brie