y the side of a high wall, over which
projected a number of the broken, gray-green, spiny leaves of the
cactus--a hedge at the foot of the terrace above.

"_Peste!_" said he. "How the devil is one to find it out in the dark?"

"Find what out?"

"My good friend," said he, in a whisper, "you are not able by chance to
see a bit of thread--a bit of red thread--tied round one of those big
leaves?"

Edwards glanced up.

"Not I."

"Ah, well, we must run the risk. Perhaps by accident there may be a
meeting."

They walked on for some time, Calabressa becoming more and more
watchful. They paused to let a man driving a wagon and a pair of oxen go
by; and then Calabressa, enjoining his companion to remain where he was,
went on alone.

The changing sky had opened somewhat overhead, and there was a wan
twilight shining through the parted clouds. Edwards, looking after
Calabressa, could have fancied that the dark figure had disappeared like
a ghost; but the old albino had merely crossed the road, opened the one
half of a huge gate, and entered a garden.

It was precisely like the gardens of the other villas along the
highway--cut in terraces along the steep side of the hill, with winding
pathways, and marble lions here and there, and little groves of orange
and olive and fig trees; while on one side the sheer descent was guarded
by an enormous cactus hedge. The ground was very unequal: on one small
plateau a fountain was playing--the trickling of the water the only
sound audible in the silence.

Calabressa took out his pocket-book, and tore a leaf from it.

"The devil!" he muttered to himself. "How is one to write in the dark?"

But he managed to scrawl the word "Barsanti;" then he wrapped the paper
round a small pebble and approached the fountain. By putting one foot on
the edge of the stone basin beneath he could reach over to the curved
top, and there he managed to drop the missive into some aperture
concealed under the lip. He stepped back, dried his hand with his
handkerchief, and then went down one of the pathways to a lower level of
the garden.

Here he easily found the entrance to an ordinary sort of grotto--a
narrow cave winding inward and ending in a piece of fancy rockwork down
which the water was heard to trickle. But he did not go to the end--he
stopped about half-way and listened. There was no sound whatever in the
dark, except the plash of the tiny water-fall.

Then there was a heavy grating noise, an