Chapter 27
THE BLACK TOWN. It was late evening when, riding wearily on jaded horses, they came to the outskirts of Angers, and saw before them the term of their journey. The glow of sunset had faded, but the sky was still warm with the last hues of day; and against its opal light the huge mass of the Angevin castle, which even in sunshine rises dark and forbidding above the Mayenne, stood up black and sharply defined. Below it, on both banks of the river, the towers and spires of the city soared up from a sombre huddle of ridge-roofs, broken here by a round-headed gateway, crumbling and pigeon-haunted, that dated from St. Louis, and there by the gaunt arms of a windmill. The city lay dark under a light sky, keeping well its secrets. Thousands were out of doors enjoying the evening coolnes
- Writer
