Tristan vaguely listened for the echo of their retreating footsteps as, passing behind the altar, they disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them.
Now he was seized with a terrible fear. What, if they were to repeat the sacrilege? He thought he recognized the voice of the first speaker; but this no doubt was but a trick of his excited imagination.
Determined to prevent so terrible a crime, he crept cautiously down the narrow passage through which they had disappeared. Six steps he counted, then he found himself in a room which seemed to be part of the sacristy, yet not a part, for a postern stood open through which gleamed the misty moonlight.
There was little doubt in Tristan's mind that they had passed out through this postern which had been left unguarded, and he found his conjectures confirmed, when his eye, accustoming itself to the radiance without, saw two misty figures passing along the road that leads past the Cœlian Hill through fields of ruins.
Taking care so they would not be attracted by the sound of his steps, Tristan crept in the shadows of roofless columns, shattered porticoes and dismantled temples, half hidden amid the dark foliage that sprang up among the very fanes and palaces of old. At times he lost sight of his quarry. Again they would rise up before him like evil spirits wandering through space.
As Tristan continued in his pursuit, he began to be beset by dire misgivings.
The twain had vanished as utterly as if the earth had swallowed them and he paused in his pursuit to gain his bearings. Had he followed two phantoms or two beings in the flesh? Had he abandoned his watch for two penitents who had perchance been locked in the church?
What might not be happening at the Lateran at this very moment! How would Don Garcia construe his absence?
A tremor passed through his limbs. He started to retrace his steps, but some unknown agency compelled him onward.
Penetrating the gloomy foliage, Tristan found himself before a large ruin, grey and roofless, from the interior of which came, muffled and indistinct, the sound of voices.