nd the scuttling and
the rustling of the rats and the whispers of the bats' wings were heard
again.

Cethru, left alone in the dark thoroughfare, sighed heavily; then,
spitting on his hands, he tightened the old girdle round his loins, and
slinging the lanthorn on his staff, held it up to the level of his waist,
and began to make his way along the street. His progress was but slow,
for he had many times to stop and rekindle the flame within his lanthorn,
which the bats' wings, his own stumbles, and the jostlings of footpads or
of revellers returning home, were for ever extinguishing. In traversing
that long street he spent half the night, and half the night in
traversing it back again. The saffron swan of dawn, slow swimming up the
sky-river between the high roof-banks, bent her neck down through the
dark air-water to look at him staggering below her, with his still
smoking wick. No sooner did Cethru see that sunlit bird, than with a
great sigh of joy he sat him down, and at once fell asleep.

Now when the dwellers in the houses of the Vita Publica first gained
knowledge that this old man passed every night with his lanthorn up and
down their street, and when they marked those pallid gleams gliding over
the motley prospect of cesspools and garden gates, over the sightless
hovels and the rich-carved frontages of their palaces; or saw them stay
their journey and remain suspended like a handful of daffodils held up
against the black stuffs of secrecy--they said:

"It is good that the old man should pass like this--we shall see better
where we're going; and if the Watch have any job on hand, or want to put
the pavements in order, his lanthorn will serve their purpose well
enough." And they would call out of their doors and windows to him
passing:

"Hola! old man Cethru! All's well with our house, and with the street
before it?"

But, for answer, the old man only held his lanthorn up, so that in the
ring of its pale light they saw some sight or other in the street. And
his silence troubled them, one by one, for each had expected that he
would reply:

"Aye, aye! All's well with your house, Sirs, and with the street before
it!"

Thus they grew irritated with this old man who did not seem able to do
anything but just hold his lanthorn up. And gradually they began to
dislike his passing by their doors with his pale light, by which they
could not fail to see, not only the rich-carved frontages and scrolled
gate