othing to a youth like you; only be careful, for
failure will plunge you into the street, sixty feet below. That terrace
gained, you are on friendly ground. Go, knock gently at the door
leading to the house below, and show the owner my ring, asking him at
the same time to guide you to the street, after which you know how to
act; and may the God of Abraham direct you. Stay! If the owner of the
house, who is a Jew, should use you roughly, heed it not. Whatever you
do, be passive. Your own life, and it may be the lives of others,
depends on this."

The first part of the Jew's caution would have availed little, for when
Mariano was roused he recked little of his own life; but the reference
to others reminded him of Angela and his father, so that he made up his
mind to be a very model of forbearance whatever should happen.

Stepping easily from the house of the Jew to the terrace of his
neighbour, he proceeded with extreme caution to the chimney pointed out
to him, and took his stand under its shadow.

It was a time and situation which induced many burning thoughts and sad
reflections to chase each other through the youth's brain, as he awaited
impatiently the clouding of the moon. From the elevated point on which
he stood nearly the whole city lay spread out at his feet, its white
terraces, domes, and minarets shining like silver in the pale light, and
contrasting vividly with the dark blue bay lying between it and the
distant range of the Jurjura mountains. Everything was profoundly calm,
quiet, and peaceful, so that he found it difficult to believe in the
fierce passions, black villainy, horrible cruelty, and intolerable
suffering which seethed below. For some time his eyes rested on the
palace of the Dey, and he thought of his father and Lucien with deep
anxiety.

Then they wandered to the hated Bagnio, and he thought with pity of the
miserable victims confined there, and of the hundreds of other Christian
men and women who toiled in hopeless slavery in and around the pirate
city. Passing onward, his eyes rested on the light-house and
fortifications of the port, and he wondered whether any of the powerful
nations of the earth would ever have the common-sense to send a fleet to
blow such a wasps' nest into unimaginable atoms!

At this point his thoughts were interrupted by the darkening of the moon
by a thick cloud, and the sudden descent of deep shadow on the town--as
if all hope in such a blessed consumma