For a time he could not conceive how he was to get within the unbroken facade of this place.

He made his way slowly into the midst of this mass of people, until he realised that the descending staircase of the central way led to the interior of the buildings.

This gave him a goal, but the crowding in the central path was so dense that it was long before he could reach it.

And even then he encountered intricate obstruction, and had an hour of vivid argument first in this guard room and then in that before he could get a note taken to the one man of all men who was most eager to see him.

His story was laughed to scorn at one place, and wiser for that, when at last he reached a second stairway he professed simply to have news of extraordinary importance for Ostrog.