enjoy the triumph which is awaiting you in Corfu.  You will be courted and applauded.  You will narrate yourself all your mad frolics, people will laugh, and at the same time will admire you for having listened to reason the moment I came here.  Everybody feels esteem for you, and M. D——­ R——­ thinks a great deal of you.  He praises very highly the command you have shewn over your passion in refraining from thrusting your sword through that insolent fool, in order not to forget the respect you owed to his house.  The general himself must esteem you, for he cannot forget what you told him of that knave.”

“What has become of him?”

“Four days ago Major Sardina’s frigate arrived with dispatches, in which the general must have found all the proof of the imposture, for he has caused the false duke or prince to disappear very suddenly.  Nobody knows where he has been sent to, and nobody ventures to mention the fellow before the general, for he made the most egregious blunder respecting him.”

“But was the man received in society after the thrashing I gave him?”

“God forbid!  Do you not recollect that he wore a sword?  From that moment no one would receive him.  His arm was broken and his jaw shattered to pieces.

But in spite of the state he was in, in spite of what he must have suffered, his excellency had him removed a week after you had treated him so severely.  But your flight is what everyone has been wondering over.  It was thought for three days that M. D——­ R——­ had concealed you in his house, and he was openly blamed for doing so.  He had to declare loudly at the general’s table that he was in the most complete ignorance of your whereabouts.  His excellency even expressed his anxiety about your escape, and it was only yesterday that your place of refuge was made known by a letter addressed by the priest of this island to the Proto-Papa Bulgari, in which he complained that an Italian officer had invaded the island of Casopo a week before, and had committed unheard-of violence.  He accused you of seducing all the girls, and of threatening to shoot him if he dared to pronounce ‘cataramonachia’ against you.  This letter, which was read publicly at the evening reception, made the general laugh, but he ordered me to arrest you all the same.”

“Madame Sagredo is the cause of it all.”

“True, but she is well punished for it.  You ought to call upon her with me to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?  Are you then certain that I shall not be placed under arrest?”

“Yes, for I know that the general is a man of honour.”

“I am of the same opinion.  Well, let us go on board your felucca.  We will embark together after midnight.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I will not run the risk of spending the night on board M. Foscari’s bastarda.  I want to reach Corfu by daylight, so as to make your victory more brilliant.”

“But what shall we do for the next eight hours?”