The old man laboriously lit his lanthorn. Its pale rays fled out on
either hand; beautiful but grim was the vision they disclosed. Tall
houses, fair court-yards, and a palm grown garden; in front of the
Prince's horse a deep cesspool, on whose jagged edges the good beast's
hoofs were planted; and, as far as the glimmer of the lanthorn stretched,
both ways down the rutted street, paving stones displaced, and smooth
tesselated marble; pools of mud, the hanging fruit of an orange tree, and
dark, scurrying shapes of monstrous rats bolting across from house to
house. The old man held the lanthorn higher; and instantly bats flying
against it would have beaten out the light but for the thin protection of
its horn sides.

The Prince sat still upon his horse, looking first at the rutted space
that he had traversed and then at the rutted space before him.

"Without a light," he said, "this thoroughfare is dangerous. What is
your name, old man?"

"My name is Cethru," replied the aged churl.

"Cethru!" said the Prince. "Let it be your duty henceforth to walk with
your lanthorn up and down this street all night and every night,"--and he
looked at Cethru: "Do you understand, old man, what it is you have to
do?"

The old man answered in a voice that trembled like a rusty flute:

"Aye, aye!--to walk up and down and hold my lanthorn so that folk can see
where they be going."