itself; were less in a hurry than the rest to get back to their homes;
again, little by little, these last groups insensibly diminished; for
half-past nine had just struck, and at this hour the streets of Rome
began already to be far from safe; then after these groups followed some
solitary passer-by, hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were
closed, one after another the windows were darkened; at last, when ten
o'clock struck, with the single exception of one window in the Vatican
where a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil, all the houses,
piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity.

At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against one
of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly and
carefully among the stones which were lying about round the foundations
of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which, formed the
centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the obelisk is now
set up of which we have spoken already; when he reached this spot he
stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the night and by the shade
of the monument, and after looking around him to see if he were really
alone, drew his sword, and with its point rapping three times on the
pavement of the piazza, each time made the sparks fly. This signal, for
signal it was, was not lost: the last lamp which still kept vigil in the
Vatican went out, and at the same instant an object thrown out of the
window fell a few paces off from the young man in the cloak: he, guided
by the silvery sound it had made in touching the flags, lost no time in
laying his hands upon it in spite of the darkness, and when he had it in
his possession hurried quickly away.

Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the Borgo
Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at the other
end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he approached the light,