Cities were often made desolate in a few days by the plague--the people running to the hills, a weird devil's silence all about the gates.

These might well betoken the presence of a foe to which the army of Plassenburg would seem as a friend.
As we rode under the Arch of the White Gate of Thorn we were summarily halted to be examined.

We gave our names, and the Doctor showed his letters of authorization from a dozen learned universities.

The Black Hussar who examined our credentials was of a taciturn disposition, and evidently no scholar, for he studied the parchments intently upsidedown, and appeared to have an idea that their genuineness was best investigated by smelling the seals.
"Where are you bound ?" he asked.
"To the house of the learned and venerable Bishop of Thorn!" said the Doctor Schmidt.
So the Hussar, having finally approved of the quality of the scholastic wax, called a subordinate, and bade him guide us to the house of Bishop Peter.
In an instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me.

For I had been accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made it one of the cleanest towns in the world.