A score of strides and they were out of the range of the firelight;
another score and they were hidden by the gloom in the mouth of one of
the narrow streets.
"Which way now?" gasped Hugh, looking back at the square where in the
flare of the great fires Christians and Jews, fighting furiously, looked
like devils struggling in the mouth of hell.
As he spoke a shock-headed, half-clad lad darted up to them and Dick
lifted his axe to cut him down.
"Friend," he said in a guttural voice, "not foe! I know where you dwell;
trust and follow me, who am of the kin of Rebecca, wife of Nathan."
"Lead on then, kin of Rebecca," exclaimed Hugh, "but know that if you
cheat us, you die."
"Swift, swift!" cried the lad, "lest those swine should reach your house
before you," and, catching Hugh by the hand, he began to run like a
hare.
Down the dark streets they went, past the great rock where the fires
burned at the gates of the palace of the Pope, then along more streets
and across an open place where thieves and night-birds peered at them
curiously, but at the sight of their drawn steel, slunk away. At length
their guide halted.
"See!" he said. "There is your dwelling. Enter now and up with the
bridge. Hark! They come. Farewell."
He was gone. From down the street to their left rose shouts and the
sound of many running feet, but there in front of them loomed the
Tower against the black and rainy sky.
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