She pretended to be dead, and was carried down the stream to a place where she contrived to crawl to land.  Some peasants came by, whose assistance she implored.  But they, observing that she was a nun of S. Margherita by her dress, refused to house her for the rest of the night.  They gave her a staff to lean on, and after a painful journey she regained the church of the Grazie at early dawn.  Ottavia’s wounds upon the head, face, and right hand, inflicted by the stock of Osio’s gun, were so serious that after making a clean breast to her judges, she died of them upon December 26, 1607.

When Osio had pushed Ottavia into the Lambro, and had tried to smash her brains out with his harquebuss, he resumed his midnight journey with Sister Benedetta.  They reached an uninhabited house in the country about five or six miles distant from Monza.  Here Osio shut Benedetta up in an empty room with a stone bench running along the wall.  She remained there all Friday, visited once by her dreaded companion, who brought her bread, cheese, and wine.  She abstained from touching any of this food, in fear of poison.  About nine in the evening he returned, and bade her prepare to march.  They set out again, together, in the dark; and after walking about three miles they came to a well, down which Osio threw her.  The well was deep, and had no water in it.  Benedetta injured her left side in the fall; and when she had reached the bottom, her would-be murderer flung a big stone on her which broke her right leg.  She contrived to protect her head by gathering stones around it, and lay without moaning or moving, in the fear that Osio would attempt fresh violence unless he thought her dead.  From the middle of Friday night, until Sunday morning, she remained thus, exploring with her eyes the surface of her dungeon.  It was dry and strewn with bones.  In one corner lay a round black object which bore the aspect of a human skull.  As it eventually turned out, this was the head of Caterina, whom Benedetta herself had helped to murder, and which Osio had thrown there.  On Sunday, during Mass, the men of the village of Velate were in church, when they heard a voice from outside calling out, ’Help, help!  I am at the bottom of this well!’ The well, as it happened, was distant some dozen paces from the church door, and Benedetta had timed her call for assistance at a lucky moment.  The villagers ran to the spot, and drew her out by means of a man who went down with a rope.  She was then taken to the house of a gentleman, Signor Alberico degli Alberici, who, when no one else was charitable enough to receive her, opened his doors to the exhausted victim of that murderous outrage.  It may be remarked that the same surgeon who had been employed to report on Ottavia’s wounds, now appeared to examine Benedetta.  His name was Ambrogio Vimercati.  Benedetta was taken to the convent of S. Orsola, where her friend Ottavia lay dying; and after making a full confession, she eventually recovered her health, and suffered life-long incarceration in her old convent.