The storm had subsided ... but its last flutterings could still be felt.
It was early; there were no people in the streets; in many places
fragments of chimneys, tiles, boards of fences which had been rent
asunder, the broken boughs of trees, lay strewn upon the ground....
"What happened at sea last night?" I involuntarily thought at the sight
of the traces left behind by the storm. I started to go to the port, but
my feet bore me in another direction, as though in obedience to an
irresistible attraction. Before ten minutes had passed I found myself in
a quarter of the town which I had never yet visited. I was walking, not
fast, but without stopping, step by step, with a strange sensation at my
heart; I was expecting something remarkable, impossible, and, at the
same time, I was convinced that that impossible thing would come to
pass.




XIII


And lo, it came to pass, that remarkable, that unexpected thing! Twenty
paces in front of me I suddenly beheld that same negro who had spoken to
the baron in my presence at the coffee-house! Enveloped in the same
cloak which I had then noticed on him, he seemed to have popped up out
of the earth, and with his back turned toward me was walking with brisk
strides along the narrow sidewalk of the crooked alley! I immediately
dashed in pursuit of him, but he redoubled his gait, although he did not
glance behind him, and suddenly made an abrupt turn around the corner of
a projecting house. I rushed to that corner and turned it as quickly as
the negro had done.... Marvellous to relate! Before me stretched a long,