form. In the heavy shadow she seemed to emerge out of one wall and gliding on seemed to disappear into another. It was undoubtedly a woman. Cosmo was startled by this noiseless apparition and had a momentary feeling of being lost in an enchanted city. Presently the enchanted silence was broken by the increasing sound of an iron-shod stick tapping the flagstones, till there walked out of one of the dark and tortuous lanes a man who by his rolling gait, general outline, and the characteristic shape of the hat, Cosmo could not doubt, was a seaman belonging to the English man-of-war in the harbour. The tapping of his stick ceased suddenly and Cosmo hailed him in English, asking for the way. 

 The sturdy figure in the tarpaulin hat put its cudgel under its arm and answered him in a deep pleasant voice. Yes, he knew the inn. He was just coming from there. If His Honour followed the street before him he would come to a large open space and His Honour's inn would be across the square. In the deep shadows Cosmo could make out of the seaman's face nothing but the bushy whiskers and the gleam of the eyes. He was pleased at meeting the very day he had reached the Mediterranean shore (he had come down to Genoa from Turin) such a fine specimen of a man-of-war's man. He thanked him for the direction and the sailor, touching his hat, went off at his slightly rolling gait. Cosmo observed that he took a turning very near the spot where the muffled woman had a moment before vanished from his sight. It was a very dark and a very narrow passage between two towering buildings. Cosmo, continuing on his way, arrived at a broad thoroughfare badly lighted but full of people. He knew where he was then. In a very few moments he found himself at the door of his inn in a great square which in comparison with the rest of the town might have been said to blaze with lights. 

 Under an iron lantern swung above a flight of three broad steps, Cosmo recognized his servant gazing into the square with a worried expression which changed at once into one of relief on perceiving his master. He touched his cap and followed Cosmo into a large hall with several doors opening into it and furnished with many wooden chairs and tables. At one of them bearing four candlesticks several British naval officers sat talking and laughing in subdued tones. A compactly built clean-shaven person with slightly sunken cheeks, wearing black breeches and a maroon waistcoat with sleeves, but displaying a very elaborate frill to his white shirt, stood in the middle of the floor, glancing about with vigilance, and bowed hurriedly to his latest client. Cosmo returned the greeting of Signor Cantelucci, who, snatching up the nearest candlestick, began to ascend a 

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