About the hour of vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge.  Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their lodgings and ordered supper.  Two priests came in and fell into conversation with them.  But something in the behaviour of one of these good men roused his suspicions.  So they left the house, took a gondola, and told the man to row hard to S. Maria Zobenigo.  On the way he bade him put them on shore, paid him well, and ordered him to wait for them.  They landed near the palace of the Spanish embassy; and here Bibboni meant to seek sanctuary.  For it must be remembered that the houses of ambassadors, no less than of princes of the Church, were inviolable.  They offered the most convenient harbouring-places to rascals.  Charles V., moreover, was deeply interested in the vengeance taken on Alessandro de’ Medici’s murderer, for his own natural daughter was Alessandro’s widow and Duchess of Florence.  In the palace they were met with much courtesy by about forty Spaniards, who showed considerable curiosity, and told them that Lorenzo and Alessandro Soderini had been murdered that morning by two men whose description answered to their appearance.  Bibboni put their questions by and asked to see the ambassador.  He was not at home.  In that case, said Bibboni, take us to the secretary.  Attended by some thirty Spaniards, ’with great joy and gladness,’ they were shown into the secretary’s chamber.  He sent the rest of the folk away, ’and locked the door well, and then embraced and kissed us before we had said a word, and afterwards bade us talk freely without any fear.’  When Bibboni had told the whole story, he was again embraced and kissed by the secretary, who thereupon left them and went to the private apartment of the ambassador.  Shortly after he returned and led them by a winding staircase into the presence of his master.  The ambassador greeted them with great honour, told them he would strain all the power of the empire to hand them in safety over to Duke Cosimo, and that he had already sent a courier to the Emperor with the good news.

So they remained in hiding in the Spanish embassy; and in ten days’ time commands were received from Charles himself that everything should be done to convey them safely to Florence.  The difficulty was how to smuggle them out of Venice, where the police of the Republic were on watch, and Florentine outlaws were mounting guard on sea and shore to catch them.  The ambassador began by spreading reports on the Rialto every morning of their having been seen at Padua, at Verona, in Friuli.  He then hired a palace at Malghera, near Mestre, and went out daily with fifty Spaniards, and took carriage or amused himself with horse exercise and shooting.  The Florentines, who were on watch, could only discover from his people that he did this for amusement.  When he thought that he had put them sufficiently off their guard, the ambassador one day took Bibboni and Bebo out by Canaregio and Mestre to Malghera, concealed in his