The Count of Monte Cristo

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of half-light, that rendered it impossible to distinguish his features,
although his dress was easily made out. He wore a large brown mantle,
one fold of which, thrown over his left shoulder, served likewise
to mask the lower part of his countenance, while the upper part was
completely hidden by his broad-brimmed hat. The lower part of his dress
was more distinctly visible by the bright rays of the moon, which,
entering through the broken ceiling, shed their refulgent beams on feet
cased in elegantly made boots of polished leather, over which descended
fashionably cut trousers of black cloth.

From the imperfect means Franz had of judging, he could only come to
one conclusion,--that the person whom he was thus watching certainly
belonged to no inferior station of life. Some few minutes had elapsed,
and the stranger began to show manifest signs of impatience, when a
slight noise was heard outside the aperture in the roof, and almost
immediately a dark shadow seemed to obstruct the flood of light that had
entered it, and the figure of a man was clearly seen gazing with eager