he town, followed by Wyde, his hands again
pocketed for safety. Groups of released church-goers, sermon-fed, met
them, and once in a while some stout burgher would nod patronizingly
to Ronald's guides, and get in response a shaky, sidelong roll of the
old man's head, as if it were mounted on a weak spiral spring. Further
on they intersected a knot of students, who eyed them askance and
exchanged remarks in an undertone. Keeping on deeper into the foul
heart of the town, they passed through swarms of idle children playing
sportlessly, as poverty is apt to play, in the dank shadows of the
narrow street. They seemed incited to mirth and ribaldry by the sight
of Ronald's new friend, and one even ventured to hurl a clod at him;
but this striking Ronald instead, and he facing promptly to the
hostile quarter from whence it came, caused a sudden slinking of the
crowd into unknown holes, like a horde of rats, and the street was for
a time empty save for the little party that threaded it. Ronald began
to think that the old man's sanity was gravely called in doubt by the
townsfolk, and would readily have backed out of his adventure but for
the curiosity that had now got the upper hand of him.

Presently the old man sidled into a dingy doorway, like a tired beast
run to earth, and Ronald followed him, not without a wish that the
architect had provided for a more efficient lighting of the sombre
passage-way in which he found himself. A sharp turn to the right after
a dozen groping-paces, a narrow stairway, a bump or two against
unexpected saliences of rough mortared wall, two steps upward and one
very surprising step downward through a cavernous doorway that took
away Ronald's breath for a moment, and sent it back again with a hot,
creeping wave of sudden perspiration all over him, as is the way with
missteps, and two more sharp turns, brought the three into a black
no-thoroughfare of a hall, whose further end was closed by a locked
door. The girl here rubbed a brimstone abomination of a match into a
mal-odorous green glow, and by its help the old man got a tortuous key
into the snaky opening in the great lock, creakily shot back its bolt,
swung open the door, and motioned Ronald to enter.

He found himself in a long and rather narrow room, with a high
ceiling, duskily lighted by three wide windows that were thickly
webbed and dusted, like ancestral bottles of fine crusty Port.
A veritable den it was, filled with what seemed to be