rude one, had, however, given attention to the figure which the flowing
cloak did not wholly muffle. With his dark complexion and slender form,
not much in keeping with the thickset and heavy-footed natives, and his
glistening black eyes, he made the corner where he ensconced himself
appear the nook where an Italian or Spanish gallant was waylaying a
rival in love.

Presently there was a change in the lighting of the scene, the gloom had
become trying to his sight. Not only were two lamps lit on the small
bridge, one at each end in the ornate iron scroll work, which Quintin
Matsys would not have disavowed, but, overhead, the sky was reddened by
the reflection of the thousands of gas jets in the north and west; the
gay and spendthrift city was awakening to life and mirth while the
working town was going to bed. This glimmer gave a fresh attraction to
the architectural features, and still longer detained the spectator.

"Superb!" he muttered, in excellent German, without local peculiarity,
as if he had learned it from professors, but there was a slight trace of
an accent not native. "It has even now the effect which Gustavus
Adolphus termed: 'a gilded saddle on a lean jade!'" Then, shivering
again, he added, struck as well by the now completely deserted state of
the ways as by the cold wind: "How bleak and desolate! One could implore
these carved wooden statues to come down and people the odd, interesting
streets!"

He was about to leave the spot, when, as though his wish was gratified,
a strange sound was audible in the narrow and devious passages, between
tottering houses, and those even more squalid in the rear, a commingling
of shuffling and stamping feet, the smiting of heavy sticks on uneven
stones and the dragging of wet rags.