he had performed the last
stage of his journey on foot after nightfall.

It is characteristic of this country that Saragossa should be guarded
during the day by the toll-takers at every gate, by sentries, and by the
new police, while at night the streets are given over to the care of a
handful of night watchmen, who call monotonously to each other all
through the hours, and may be avoided by the simplest-minded of
malefactors.

Don Francisco de Mogente brought the ferry-boat gently alongside the
landing-stage beneath the high wall of the Quay, and made his way through
the underground passage and up the dirty steps that lead into one of the
narrow streets of the old town.

The moon had broken through the clouds again and shone down upon the
barred windows. The traveler stood still and looked about him. Nothing
had changed since he had last stood there. Nothing had changed just here
for five hundred years or so; for he could not see the domes of the
Cathedral of the Pillar, comparatively modern, only a century old.

Don Francisco de Mogente had come from the West; had known the newness of
the new generation. And he stood for a moment as if in a dream, breathing
in the tainted air of narrow, undrained streets; listening to the cry of
the watchman slowly dying as the man walked away from him on sandaled,
noiseless feet; gazing up at the barred windows, heavily shadowed. There
was an old world stillness in the air, and suddenly the bells of fifty
churches tolled the hour. It was one o'clock in the morning. The traveler
had traveled backwards, it would seem, into the middle ages. As he heard
the church bells he gave an angry upward jerk of the head, as if the
sound confirmed a thought that was already in his mind. The bells seemed
to be all around him; the towers of the churches seemed to dominate the
sleeping city on every side. There was a distinct smell of incense in the
air of these narrow streets, where the winds of the outer world rarely
found access.

The traveler knew his way, and hurried down a narrow turning to the left,
with the Cathedral of the Pillar between him and the river. He had made a
de tour in order to avoid the bridge and the Paseo del Ebro, a broad
road on the river bank. In these narrow streets he met no one. On the
Paseo there are several old inns, notably the Posada de los Reyes, used
by muleteers and other gentlemen of the road, who arise and start at any
hour of the twenty-four and in summer t