I glanced up over my shoulder. The town walls were shadowy bulwarks, cutting off the sky. A single lonely streetlight did little to lighten their darkness.

Up above, on the balustraded walkway, something moved. It looked like a black sleeve, flapping.

I clutched at Tony, who was staring stupidly down the Schmeidgasse. He let out a yelp.

“For God’s sake, don’t do that!”

“He’s up there,” I gasped. “On the wall. Tony—I think he waved at me.”

“You would think that,” Tony said bitterly. He pulled away from me and ran toward the flight of stone stairs that led up to the ramparts.

There may be worse places in which to pursue a crazy grave robber, but offhand I can’t think of many. The stairs are composed of the same rough brownish stone that constitutes the walls. They are steep, narrow, and very uneven. The walkway is stone-floored too; it is actually the top of the rampart, with a thin outer wall on one side. On the other side, only a waist-high wooden railing stands between the wall-walker and the paved street twenty feet below. There are lights at infrequent intervals; they are suspended from the houses that face the wall across a wide alley, and they do not illumine the stone underfoot, which is rough and full of unexpected dips and bumps. Tony took the stairs three at a time and went roaring down the narrow walkway like a mad bull.

I went after him, though I would have preferred not to do so. The pursuit was pointless now, and potentially dangerous. Our quarry could easily elude us; the fact that he had not already done so in the Schmeidgasse made me highly suspicious of his present route. But there is no arguing with Tony when he gets in one of his rages; I couldn’t even get close enough to talk to him, much less reason with him. So I followed. I had left him in the lurch once before, and I didn’t enjoy the memory of that moment of cowardice.

It’s a wonder we both didn’t break our necks. I kept stumbling; once I caught my foot in a concavity and ricocheted off the railing with a force that made that insufficient barricade quiver. Tony was some distance ahead, running like an Olympic champ. He kept vanishing and reappearing as the stretches of darkness between the streetlights swallowed and then disgorged his fleeting form. The effect was quite unnerving.

The worst places were the towers that break the wall at intervals. The walkway goes through them, and the enclosed chambers are extremely dark. Preoccupied as I was by more vital matters, I couldn’t help noticing the stench as we passed through these tower rooms, and I wondered what primitive instinct moves some members of the so-called human race to relieve themselves in every secluded corner, as dogs do.