They went silently out of the house as the dawn was breaking.

Marnier had the key to the stables, and they saddled the two horses and rode through the blind and silent streets with their faces muffled in their cloaks.
They met no one, however, until they were come to the outskirts of the town.

But then as they passed the mouth of an alley a man came suddenly out and as suddenly drew back.

The morning was chill, and the man was closely wrapped.
Wogan could not distinguish his face or person, and looking down the alley he saw at the end of it only a garden wall, and over the top of the wall a thicket of trees and the chimney-tops of a low house embosomed amongst them.

He rode on, secure in the secrecy of his desperate adventure.