at first that it was a cat running along the gutter, but,
putting my ear to the wall, my uncertainty was at once dispelled;
somebody was walking on the roof. I nudged Wilfred. "Sh!" he whispered,
pressing my hand; he had heard it, too. The firelight was casting its
last shadows on the decrepit walls. I was considering whether I would
get up or not, when the little window, held only by a bit of brick,
slowly opened. A pale face with shining eyes, red hair, and quivering
cheeks appeared in the opening and gazed into the interior of the
chamber. Our fear was so great that we hadn't strength left to cry out.
At length the man glided through the sash and let himself down into the
loft without a sound. The man, short and thick-set, the muscles of his
face contracted like a tiger about to spring, was none other than
the ingenuous person who had volunteered his advice on the road to
Heidelberg. But how different he seemed to us now! In spite of the
bitter cold, he was in his shirt sleeves, dressed only in a pair
of breeches, woolen stockings, and silver buckled shoes. A long,
blood-stained knife glittered in his hand.

Wilfred and I thought our last hour had surely come. But he did not
appear to see us in the oblique shadow of the loft, notwithstanding that
the fire started up again in the cold draft from the open window.
He squatted down on a chair and began to shiver in a strange manner.
Suddenly he fixed his yellowish-green eyes upon me; his nostrils dilated
and he watched me for a full minute, while the blood froze in my veins.
Then turning toward the stove, he gave a hoarse cough, like the purring
of a cat, without moving a muscle of his face. He drew a large watch
from his breeches pocket, made a gesture as if looking at the time, and
either inadvertently or purposely laid it on the table. This done, he
rose as if undecided, looked doubtfully at the window, hesitated, and
finally disappeared through the door, leaving it wide open behind him.
I sprang up to turn the lock; already the man's footsteps creaked on the
staircase two floors below. An irresistible curiosity asserted itself
over my fear, and hearing a window open, which looked upon the court, I
approached the sash of the little winding staircase on the same side of
the house. The courtyard, from where I stood, lay at a dizzy depth, and
a wall from fifty to sixty feet high divided it. On the right of the
wall was the yard of a pork butcher; on the left, the inn yar