“If you will not give me refreshment,” exclaimed he, in an angry tone, “give me wherewithal to buy it.  I demand a hundred sequins.”

The prior himself was at the window above his head; and the only answer was a sneer, which was loyally echoed through every cloister.

“Let me have your bayonet for a moment,” said the stranger to one of his guard.  He received it; and striking away a projecting stone in the wall, out rushed the hundred sequins.  The prior clasped his hands in agony, that so much money should have been so near, and yet have escaped his pious purposes, The soldiers took off their caps for the discoverer, and bowed them still lower when he threw every sequin of it into the shakos of those polite warriors.  The officer, to whom he had given a double share, showed his gratitude by a whisper, offering to assist his escape for as much more.  But the stranger declined the civility, and walked boldly into the presence-chamber of the sublime podesta.

The Signer Dominico Castello-Grande Tremamondo was a little Venetian noble, descended in a right line from Aeneas, with a palazzo on the Canale Regio of Venice, which he let for a coffee-house; and living in the pomp and pride of a magnifico on something more than the wages of an English groom.  The intelligence of this extraordinary stranger’s discoveries had flown like a spark through a magazine, and the illustrissimo longed to be a partaker in the secret.  He interrogated the prisoner with official fierceness, but could obtain no other reply than the general declaration, that he was a traveller come to see the captivations of Italy.  In the course of the inquiry the podesta dropped a significant hint about money.

“As to money,” was the reply, “I seldom carry any about me; it is so likely to tempt rascals to dip deeper in roguery.  I have it whenever I choose to call for it.”

“I should like to see the experiment made, merely for its curiosity,” said the governor.

“You shall be obeyed,” was the answer; “but I never ask for more than a sum for present expenses.  Here, you fellow!” said he, turning to one of the half-naked soldiery, “lend me five hundred sequins!”

The whole guard burst into laughter.  The sum would have been a severe demand on the military chest of the army.  The handsome stranger advanced to him, and, seizing his musket, said, loftily, “Fellow, if you won’t give the money, this must.”  He struck the butt-end of the musket thrice upon the floor.  At the third blow a burst of gold poured out, and sequins ran in every direction.  The soldiery and the officers of the court were in utter astonishment.  All wondered, many began to cross themselves, and several of the most celebrated swearers in the regiment dropped upon their knees.  But their devotions were not long, for the sublime podesta ordered the hall to be cleared, and himself, the stranger, and the sequins, left alone.