"Now, buy your cooking pan at the next smith's shop you come to,
and then we can go slowly along making our observations."

They soon found that the street they had entered was, for the most
part, deserted by its inhabitants. The shops were all closed,
the road was strewn with fallen chimneys and balconies, and here
and there were yawning holes showing how severely the street had
suffered when the artillery duel was going on between the guns on
the walls and those of the citadel. A short distance down the street
a chain was stretched across it, and here a musketeer was pacing
up and down on guard. Two others could be seen at the farther end
of the street, where there was a gateway in the wall, now closed
up with sandbags piled thickly against it.

"We will see if the other streets are similarly guarded."

This was found to be so, sentries being placed in every street
running down to the wall in this quarter.

"So far so good, Paolo. I do not think that matters could have been
better for us. The next thing is to buy a tool with which we can
wrench open a door or the shutter of a window; but a door will be
best, because we could not work at a shutter without running the
risk of being seen by a sentinel, while in a doorway we should be
screened from observation. These houses in the Strada Vecchia are
old, and the doors ought not to give us much trouble."

"Some of these old locks are very strong, master. I should think
that it would be easier to cut out one of the panels than to force
the door open."