n a panic, thinking Henry of Navarre was bombarding
Paris. Then, being fully roused, I perceived that the noise was thunder.

From the window I peered into floods of rain. The peals died away.
Suddenly came a terrific lightning-flash, and I cried out in
astonishment. For the shutter opposite was open, and I had a vivid
vision of three men in the window.

Then all was dark again, and the thunder shook the roof.

I stood straining my eyes into the night, waiting for the next flash.
When it came it showed me the window barred as before. Flash followed
flash; I winked the rain from my eyes and peered in vain. The shutter
remained closed as if it had never been opened. Sleep rolled over me in
a great wave as I groped my way back to bed.

II

_At the Amour de Dieu._

When I woke in the morning, the sun was shining broadly into the room,
glinting in the little pools of water on the floor. I stared at them,
sleepy-eyed, till recollection came to me of the thunder-storm and the
open shutter and the three men. I jumped up and ran to the window. The
shutters opposite were closed; the house just as I had seen it first,
save for the long streaks of wet down the wall. The street below was one
vast puddle. At all events, the storm was no dream, as I half believed
the vision to be.

I dressed speedily and went down-stairs. The inn-room was deserted save
for Maitre Jacques, who, with heat, demanded of me whether I took myself
for a prince, that I lay in bed till all decent folk had been hours
about their business, and then expected breakfast. However, he brought
me a meal, and I made no complaint that it was a poor one.

"You have strange neighbours in the house opposite," said I.

He started, and the thin wine he was setting before me splashed over on
the table.

"What neighbours?"

"Why, they who close their shutters when other folks would keep them
open, and open them when others keep them shut," I said airily. "Last
night I saw three men in the window opposite mine."

He laughed.

"Aha, my lad, your head is not used to our Paris wines. That is how you
came to see visions."

"Nonsense," I cried, nettled. "Your wine is too well watered for that,
let me tell you, Maitre Jacques."

"Then you dreamed it," he said huffily. "The proof is that no one has
lived in that house these twenty years."

Now, I had plenty to trouble about without troubling my head over
night-hawks, but I was vexed with him for putting me