This hall, as in all Venetian palaces, ran through the house from front to rear. At its end was a glass door. The door unlocked, we were in the garden. A path turned to the right, joining a broad walk fringed with a well-trimmed hedge of box. This walk led straight to the gate–our gate of the third hour. There was no need to refer to the photograph. It was unmistakable.
“The Signori are of course expected?” asked the servant hesitatingly, as he unlocked this gate.
“Naturally,” replied St. Hilary, dropping a piece of silver in his palm.
The gate was locked behind us.
“How are we to find our way out?” I demanded.
St. Hilary was staring about him as one who knows his ground.
“My dear Hume,” he grinned, “I know my way out perfectly. Allow me to point out to you the Well of the Pomegranates and the Loops, and immediately over the doorway there the Sign of the Blind Camel. We are at the landmark of the fourth hour.”
“And the ten figures on the disks of the third hour are represented by these busts built in the wall–five in either wall. We are getting on. But why, I wonder, did da Sestos lead us to this landmark by the way of the House of the Angel? He might have brought us here directly by the Campo San Salvatore.”
“Because,” commented St. Hilary, “the way by land would have necessitated a dozen directions. By water we have come without undue perplexity in three. But here, I am afraid, our voyage of discovery must end for to-night. We shall have to puzzle out the fifth hour before we can go farther.”
I had opened the Bible that I had brought with me from the gondola, and, supported by the curb of the well, I rested it on my knee, turning to the Book of Genesis. I read the verse of the fourth hour: