screams of savagery-the wit of Donna Claudia was more than enough for the emergency. In an instant she had plucked a bag of coins from her bosom and was casting them among the greedy multitude. The swarm of lazzaroni faltered, swerved. The coach leapt onwards across the width of the piazza, and with a terrific jerk, as the horses felt the restraining power of the reins, at last came to a halt.

Donna Claudia stood by the door.

"Welcome, your Excellency," she said, "to the sanctuary of the Convent of San Luigi."

She hammered with the pommel of her whip upon the barred gates of the building, and dragging the Viceroy from the coach, looked upon von Reinhold.

"I wonder what my brother will say to this," she smiled. "I have saved a Viceroy for his weight in ducats."

She spurned the Viceroy lightly with her foot.

"If not his weight, for fifty-fold his value. Get in, old fool! God in His mercy should have created you a woman!"

The affrighted face of the Spanish Provincial of the Order was peering at them through the wicket.

"Open!" cried Donna Claudia. "Tis His Corpu

lence the Duke of Arcos!"

The rabble was gathering for a rush upon them. She scattered a handful of coins with disdainful gesture. The sound of her laughter rang through the piazza as von Reinhold and the Viceroy passed into the convent.

CHAPTER IX

THE HOUSE WITH THE TWO TURNINGS

I CANNOT say how long I lay bereft of sense, but on coming to myself it was with no little satisfaction that I ascertained the comparatively trifling nature of my injuries. Beyond a trivial flesh wound in my side-it would seem that the dagger must have providentially glanced off the steel buckle on the strap of my blue doublet-and a score or so of bruises, which were unlikely to cause me more than a merely temporary stiffness, I had in point of fact passed practically unscathed through the terrible ordeal which I had encountered.

I raised my head and strove to gaze about me. Alas! I had miscalculated my strength, and with a groan I fell back again upon the pallet, for the unfamiliar surroundings began to dance before me, my throat was parched with an intolerable thirst, a burning pain shot through my temples. The very movement seemed to have aroused a thousand devils in my body.

For a while I lay motionless and tried to recollect myself. Where was I? I recalled the Mercato, the apparition of my friend of the stool, and my escape. And after? My fevered brain pulsed with the effort, wavered, finally refused its office. I knew nothing, could think of nothing. When all was said and done, what did it matter? I was alive, faint, dizzy, yet alive. The symptoms would pass off in time. It was sufficient that I was alive.

And then that maddening thirst came over me afresh, and but one thought possessed me. Through my clinging lips I gasped for water. But I was alone, and there was none to answer me. The realisation

of my solitude grew with the strength of my desire. Feverishly, mechanically, I groped out with my hands, and as I did so a hoarse cry broke from me in a voice which I hardly knew to be my own.

Joy of joys! My hand rested upon a goblet by my side. With a murmured blessing upon the good Samaritan who had placed the cooling draught within my reach, I clutched it eagerly and drew it to me. The cup was filled to the brim with what I conjectured to be Vomero, a rough and acrid vintage, such as is consumed in the lower taverns of the city. But to me it was like nectar, and I drained it to the dregs. And then a feeling of peace passed over me, and I must have slumbered, for I remember nothing further.

When I opened my eyes the night had fallen. Some one had visited me while I slept, for a candle stood burning in the chamber. It was all but spent, and the wick flaring in a long flame. I must have slept for many hours.

It may have been the repose after my great exertions, it may have been some soothing medicament in the wine, but I awoke refreshed and with my brain restored to clearness. The goblet had been replenished, and upon a trestle beside me rested a savoury mess of macaroni. I fell to with avidity, and, the pangs of hunger once appeased, began to stare with some amazement at the room about me. By the flickering light I perceived that I lay in a low oblong chamber. Set in the wall were three round oriel windows, of which the centre one was roughly glazed, while the others were filled in with oiled paper. The walls themselves were bare and much discoloured by the ravages of years, a single ragged strip of faded tapestry hanging suspended opposite the doorway. About the entire apartment hung an indescribable air of mouldy dreariness, as of a room which had been long untenanted. The form of the beams which ran transversely above me suggested a close proximity to the roof; it was clear that the place was a mere garret.

The candle expired with a splutter. With a curse I

waited until my eyes should grow accustomed to the darkness. Then I staggered slowly to my feet. Despite a certain wavering unsteadiness I experienced no difficulty in moving. The time had come for action. First and foremost, where was I, in what quarter of the city, a free man or a prisoner? I crossed over to the casement, and, flinging it open, leant out into the night.

Between the wavy hollows of Somma and Vesuvius the moon was rising. A thin, vapoury column of smoke rose beneath it, and at intervals obscured its brightness. Like the bourdon note of a distant organ the heavy tramp of a vast multitude vibrated in the city. Here and there a tongue of flame shot up into the heavens, revealing dim dense clusters of human beings prowling amid the roadways. Now as I listened I heard a sharp heartrending cry, a burst of brutal merriment, a roar as of hungry wolves below me. The square glowed like a furnace in the red light of torches raised on poles above a sea of heads. The mob surged this way, that way, and passed on. Soon the moon grew brighter, shone with gentle radiance over the Mercato, threw into bold relief the grisly gallows, and what with a start I saw to be the smoking ruins of the Custom House. From around the corner advanced a dark procession, bearing a black banner in its midst, and chanting mournfully a penitential psalm. It too moved on, and, as the wailing hymn receded from me, wafted upon the breeze rose the shrill scream of a tortured creature. With a sickening feeling at my heart I rushed away.

Wolfram von Reinhold! My God! If he should lie at the mercy of these wretches! The thought tore at my senses, beat with the force of a sledge-hammer on my brain. Hardly knowing what I did, I sprang across the room, and came into violent contact with the door. Reeling from the shock against the woodwork my hand lit on a loop of cord. I pulled at this, the door yielded, and I went out.

There for a second or two I paused in absolute ignorance as to where I was, or on what my foot might be about to rest. Then I plunged madly forward in the

darkness.

The recollection of von Reinhold seemed to have paralysed my caution.

My fingers caught upon a baluster, slid along it in a vain effort to restrain myself. My foot stepped into thin air. With a crash which re-echoed in the rafters I fell stumbling to the bottom of the staircase.

I was trembling now as I picked myself up and listened. The noise of my fall must have resounded through the building. I heard the scampering of a rat, I could have fancied that I detected voices. But as I waited crouching in the deep obscurity, no human footfall came to mar the stillness. It seemed that the house must be deserted.

The thought brought me confidence once more. Warily, for I had no mind to risk another similar catastrophe, I felt my way onward down what appeared to be a narrow corridor, to the left up a short flight of steps, which creaked uneasily beneath me, then again descending sharply to the right in the direction of what I judged to be the outer exit.

It is the fashion of our young men of to-day to scoff at Providence, to deny the hand of God in the guidance of our actions. Yet it is to Providence alone that I may ascribe my deliverance that night. I was mad, delirious, what you will. I laugh as I bethink me of the folly which held me in its grip while I wandered about those dark, worm-eaten passages. Had I achieved the sum of my desire, had I emerged upon the piazza as I wished, should I be alive now to write the tale which I am writing? My tattered uniform still hung in shreds about me, revealing me as an object of hatred to all whom I might encounter; I was unarmed, for my sword was with Ercole. I shudder as I reflect upon the fate which I should have brought upon myself had not a kindly Providence directed my steps otherwise.

What it was that decided me, who can tell? I know now that had I turned to the left instead of to the right, my life in all probability had paid the forfeit. As I hesitated, fumbling cautiously about me upon the