PAST THE NARROW APERTURE OF THE Gate lay a pool vaulted over with a vast, fair stone arch. Some engineer had lately constructed a tide-driven engine there for raising water to a cistern in some higher building back in the penetralia of the citadel, and its fearsome grinding – like a troll gnashing its teeth in a cave – appalled Mr. Bhnh more than anything he'd seen all night. He took his leave gladly. Daniel had disembarked onto some ancient slime-covered stairs. He ascended, carefully, to the level of the Water Lane, which ran between the inner and outer fortifications. This had become the scene of a makeshift camp: several hundred Irish people at least were here, taking their ease on blankets or thin scatterings of straw, smoking pipes if they were lucky, playing hair-raising plaints on penny-whistles. No celebratory bonfires here: just a few brooding cook-fires setting kettle-bottoms aglow, and begrudging faint red warmth on the hands and faces of the squatters. There had to be a rational explanation for their being here, but Daniel could not conjure one up. But that was what made city life interesting.