Nothing had changed since he had last stood there.

Nothing had changed just here for five hundred years or so; for he could not see the domes of the Cathedral of the Pillar, comparatively modern, only a century old.
Don Francisco de Mogente had come from the West; had known the newness of the new generation.

And he stood for a moment as if in a dream, breathing in the tainted air of narrow, undrained streets; listening to the cry of the watchman slowly dying as the man walked away from him on sandaled, noiseless feet; gazing up at the barred windows, heavily shadowed.

There was an old world stillness in the air, and suddenly the bells of fifty churches tolled the hour.

It was one o'clock in the morning.