It is the custom of the wine-carters, when they have had plenty to eat and drink, to climb to their seats under the fan-like goat-skin hoods of their carts, and to go to sleep, wrapped in their huge cloaks.  Their mules plod along and keep out of the way of other vehicles without any guidance, and their dogs protect them from thieves, who might steal their money; for they always carry the sum necessary to pay the octroi duty at the city gates, where every cart is stopped.  As they are on the road most of their lives, winter and summer, they would not get much sleep if they tried to keep awake all night; and they drink a good deal, partly because wine is really a protection against the dangerous fever, and partly because their drink costs them nothing.  Some of them drank their employers’ wine at supper, others exchanged what they brought for Paoluccio’s, which they liked better.

They usually got away about midnight, and Mommo was often the last to go.  It was a part of Regina’s work to go down to the cellar and draw the wine that was wanted from the hogsheads when the host was too lazy to go down himself, and being quite unwatched she could draw a measure from the oldest and strongest if she chose.  Mommo could easily be made a little sleepier than usual, after being tempted to outstay the others.

And so it turned out that night.  After the necessary operation of tapping one of his casks and filling it up with water, he lingered on before a measure of the best, while Nanna and Paoluccio dozed in their chairs; and at last all three were asleep.

Then Regina went out softly into the dark summer night, and climbed the stairs to the attic.

“I am going to take you to Rome to-night,” she whispered in Marcello’s ear.

“Rome?” he repeated vaguely, half asleep.

She wrapped him in the tattered blanket as he was, and lifted him lightly in her arms.  Down the stairs she bore him, and then lifted him upon the tail of the cart, propping him up as best she could, and passing round him the end of one of the ropes that held the casks in place.  He breathed more freely in the open air, and she had fed him again before the carters came to supper.

“And you?” he asked faintly.

“I shall walk,” she whispered.  “Now wait, and make no noise, or they will kill you.  Are you comfortable?”

She could see that he nodded his head.

“We shall start presently,” she said.

She went into the kitchen, waked Mommo, and made him swallow the rest of his wine.  He was easily persuaded that he had slept too long, and must be on the road.  The innkeeper and Nanna grumbled a good-night as he went out rather unsteadily, followed by Regina.  A moment later the mules’ bells jingled, the cart creaked, and Mommo was off.