This advice was approved, and with very little difficulty they tracked the man's course.
But soon they encountered a new enigma.
They had gone scarcely fifty yards ere the drops turned away from the river, and took them to the gate of a large gloomy building. It was a monastery.
They stood irresolute before it, and gazed at the dark pile.
It seemed to them to hide some horrible mystery.
But presently Andrea gave a shout. “Here be the drops again,” cried he. “And this road leadeth to the river.”
They resumed the chase; and soon it became clear the drops were now leading them home. The track became wetter and wetter, and took them to the Tiber's edge. And there on the bank a bucketful appeared to have been discharged from the stream.
At first they shouted, and thought they had made a discovery: but reflection showed them it amounted to nothing. Certainly a man had been in the water, and had got out of it in safety; but that man was not Gerard. One said he knew a fisherman hard by that had nets and drags. They found the fisherman and paid him liberally to sink nets in the river below the place, and to drag it above and below; and promised him gold should he find the body. Then they ran vainly up and down the river which flowed so calm and voiceless, holding this and a thousand more strange secrets. Suddenly Andrea, with a cry of hope, ran back to the house.
He returned in less than half an hour.
“No,” he groaned, and wrung his hands.