of shunning wine, which was then used in
considerable quantities; and he could not help being surprised, that the
few cups he had drunk over night had produced on his frame the effects
of excess. He rose up, adjusted his dress, and sought in the apartment
for water to perform his morning ablutions, but without success. Wine
there was on the table; and beside it one stool stood, and another lay,
as if thrown down in the heedless riot of the evening. "Surely," he
thought to himself, "the wine must have been very powerful, which
rendered me insensible to the noise my companions must have made ere
they finished their carouse."

With momentary suspicion he examined his weapons, and the packet which
he had received from the Countess, and kept in a secret pocket of his
upper coat, bound close about his person. All was safe; and the very
operation reminded him of the duties which lay before him. He left the
apartment where they had supped, and went into another, wretched enough,
where, in a truckle-bed, were stretched two bodies, covered with a rug,
the heads belonging to which were amicably deposited upon the same truss
of hay. The one was the black shock-head of the groom; the other,
graced with a long thrum nightcap, showed a grizzled pate, and a grave
caricatured countenance, which the hook-nose and lantern-jaws proclaimed
to belong to the Gallic minister of good cheer, whose praises he had
heard sung forth on the preceding evening. These worthies seemed to have
slumbered in the arms of Bacchus as well as of Morpheus, for there were
broken flasks on the floor; and their deep snoring alone showed that
they were alive.

Bent upon resuming his journey, as duty and expedience alike dictated,
Julian next descended the trap-stair, and essayed a door at the bottom
of the steps. It was fastened within. He called--no answer was returned.
It must be, he thought, the apartment of the revellers, now probably
sleeping as soundly as their dependants still slumbered, and as he
himself had done a few minutes before. Should he awake them?--To what
purpose? They were men with whom accident had involved him against
his own will; and situated as he was, he thought it wise to take the
earliest opportunity of breaking off from society which was suspicious,
and might be perilous. Ruminating thus, he essayed another door, which
admitted him to a bedroom, where lay another harmonious slumberer. The
mean utensils, pewter measures, empty cans and ca