ng intervals, and then in close succession. They were suburban
houses, and there were yet more fields of reeds, quickset hedges,
olive-trees overtopping long walls, and big gateways with vase-surmounted
pillars; but at last came the city with its rows of small grey houses,
its petty shops and its dingy taverns, whence at times came shouts and
rumours of battle.

Prada insisted on setting his companions down in the Via Giulia, at fifty
paces from the palazzo. "It doesn't inconvenience me at all," said he to
Pierre. "Besides, with the little time you have before you, it would
never do for you to go on foot."

The Via Giulia was already steeped in slumber, and wore a melancholy
aspect of abandonment in the dreary light of the gas lamps standing on
either hand. And as soon as Santobono had alighted from the carriage, he
took himself off without waiting for Pierre, who, moreover, always went
in by the little door in the side lane.

"Good-bye, Abbe," exclaimed Prada.

"Good-bye, Count, a thousand thanks," was Santobono's response.

Then the two others stood watching him as he went towards the Boccanera
mansion, whose old, monumental entrance, full of gloom, was still wide
open. For a moment they saw his tall, rugged figure erect against that
gloom. Then in he plunged, he and his little basket, bearing Destiny.

XII.

IT was ten o'clock when Pierre and Narcisse, after dining at the Caffe di
Roma, where they had long lingered chatting, at last walked down the
Corso towards the Palazzo Buongiovanni. They had the greatest difficulty
to reach its entrance, for carriages were coming up in serried files, and
the inquisitive crowd of on-lookers, who pressed even into the roadway,
in spite of the injunctions of the police, was growing so compact that
even the horses could no longer approach. The ten lofty windows on the
first floor of the long monumental facade shone with an intense white
radiance, the radiance of electric lamps, which illumined the street like
sunshine, spreading over the equipages aground in that human sea, whose
billows of eager, excited faces rolled to and fro amidst an extraordinary
tumult.

And in all this there was not merely the usual curiosity to see uniforms
go by and ladies in rich attire alight from their carriages, for Pierre
soon gathered from what he heard that the crowd had come to witness the
arrival of the King and Queen, who had promised to appear at the ball
given by Prince Buongiova