midday
As they went up , treading carefully , forms white as spirits came down the street in heelless babouches that made no more noise than the wings of a bat . These forms loomed vague in the shadow , then took shape as Arab men , whose eyes gleamed under turbans or out from hoods . Moving aside to let a cloaked figure go by , Stephen brushed against the blank wall of a house , which was cold , sweating dampness like an underground vault . No sun , except a streak at midday , could ever penetrate this tunnel-street . So they went on from one alley into another , as if lost in a catacomb , or the troubling mazes of a nightmare . Always the walls were blank , save for a deep-set , nail-studded door , or a small window like a square dark hole . Yet in reality , Nevill Caird was not lost .