o the teeth and bearing lanterns,
echoed in the distance. Soon the town, garroted as it were, seemed to be
asleep, and safe from robbers and evil-doers, except through the roofs.
In those days the roofs of houses were much frequented after dark. The
streets were so narrow in the provincial towns, and even in Paris, that
robbers could jump from the roofs on one side to those on the other.
This perilous occupation was long the amusement of King Charles IX. in
his youth, if we may believe the memoirs of his day.

Fearing to present himself too late to the old silversmith, the young
nobleman now went up to the door of the Malemaison intending to knock,
when, on looking at it, his attention was excited by a sort of vision,
which the writers of those days would have called "cornue,"--perhaps
with reference to horns and hoofs. He rubbed his eyes to clear his
sight, and a thousand diverse sentiments passed through his mind at the
spectacle before him. On each side of the door was a face framed in
a species of loophole. At first he took these two faces for grotesque
masks carved in stone, so angular, distorted, projecting, motionless,
discolored were they; but the cold air and the moonlight presently
enabled him to distinguish the faint white mist which living breath sent
from two purplish noses; then he saw in each hollow face, beneath the
shadow of the eyebrows, two eyes of porcelain blue casting clear fire,
like those of a wolf crouching in the brushwood as it hears the baying
of the hounds. The uneasy gleam of those eyes was turned on him so
fixedly that, after receiving it for fully a minute, during which he
examined the singular sight, he felt like a bird at which a setter
points; a feverish tumult rose in his soul, but he quickly repressed
it. The two faces, strained and suspicious, were doubtless those of
Cornelius and his sister.

The young man feigned to be looking about him to see where he was,
and whether this were the house named on a card which he drew from his
pocket and pretended to read in the moonlight; then he walked straight
to the door and struck three blows upon it, which echoed within the
house as if it were the entrance to a cave. A faint light crept beneath
the threshold, and an eye appeared at a small and very strong iron
grating.

"Who is there?"

"A friend, sent by Oosterlinck, of Brussels."

"What do you want?"

"To enter."

"Your name?"

"Philippe Goulenoire."

"Have you brought credent