This speech was followed by much weeping and lamentation.  He called himself unhappy wretch at being suspected of treason towards a man for whom he would have given his life.  I knew my man, but I played out the comedy.  Having given him a shirt and a cap, I stood up bare-headed, and then having sprinkled the cell with holy water, and plentifully bedewed him with the same liquid, I made him swear a dreadful oath, stuffed with senseless imprecations, which for that very reason were the better fitted to strike terror to his soul.  After his having sworn the oath to deliver my letters to their addresses, I gave him them, and he himself proposed to sew them up at the back of his waistcoat, between the stuff and the lining, to which proceedings I assented.

I was morally sure that he would deliver my letters to the secretary in the first opportunity, so I took the utmost care that my style of writing should not discover the trick.  They could only gain me the esteem of the Court, and possibly its mercy.  One of the letters was addressed to M. de Bragadin and the other to the Abbe Grimani, and I told them not to be anxious about me as I was in good hopes of soon being set at liberty, that they would find when I came out that my imprisonment had done me more good than harm, as there was no one in Venice who stood in need of reform more than I.

I begged M. de Bragadin to be kind enough to send me a pair of fur boots for the winter, as my cell was high enough for me to stand upright and to walk up and down.

I took care that Soradaci should not suspect the innocent nature of these letters, as he might then have been seized with the temptation to do an honest thing for me, and have delivered them, which was not what I was aiming at.  You will see, dear reader, in the following chapter, the power of oaths over the vile soul of my odious companion, and also if I have not verified the saying ‘In vino veritas’, for in the story he told me the wretch had shewn himself in his true colours.

CHAPTER XXIX

Treason of Soradaci—­How I Get the Best of Him—­Father Balbi Ends His Work—­I Escape from My Cell—­Unseasonable Observations of Count Asquin The Critical Moment

Soradaci had had my letters for two or three days when Lawrence came one afternoon to take him to the secretary.  As he was several hours away, I hoped to see his face no more; but to my great astonishment he was brought back in the evening.  As soon as Lawrence had gone, he told me that the secretary suspected him of having warned the chaplain, since that individual had never been near the ambassador’s and no document of any kind was found upon him.  He added that after a long examination he had been confined in a very small cell, and was then bound and brought again before the secretary, who wanted him to confess that he told someone at Isola that the priest would never return, but that he had not done so as he had said no such thing.  At last the secretary got tired, called the guards, and had him brought back to my cell.