Wilfrid soon began to see that he was with a guide of peculiar excellence; the real reason, perhaps, why he had been selected for the trust. On a foggy night blindness is better than sight.
In walking down the staircase of the hotel Wilfrid had guided Alexis; in the street it became the turn of Alexis to guide Wilfrid. Linking Wilfrid’s arm within his own he walked forward with no more hesitation than an ordinary man would have shown in traversing the street in broad daylight. It was marvellous to mark the ease with which he steered his course, now to right, and now to left. To him darkness was no darkness at all.
Twenty minutes of silent walking, and then the two were brought to a sudden standstill by a startling challenge. “Who goes there? Halt!”
Barely discernible, there loomed up out of the fog a figure clad in a long grey coat with cross-belt, and armed with a bayoneted rifle.
Alexis whispered something that Wilfrid did not catch, and the soldier, apparently satisfied, melted into the fog again.
“A sentinel, and a watchword,” thought Wilfrid. “Either a Government building or an Imperial palace. I incline to the palace.”
The two went forward, treading upon a wooden flooring that gave forth a hollow sound. Moved by curiosity, Wilfrid drew forth a coin and flung it sideways in air. Its descent, as he had expected, was accompanied by a slight splash.
“A bridge and water,” he thought. “The Fontanka Canal, or the moat round the Michaelhof? The moat, I fancy.”
At the end of the supposed bridge they were challenged by a second sentinel. Alexis whispered, and, as before, the two were permitted to pass on, walking now over a pavement of flagstones.