Below the pavement I found another plank, but I had expected as much.  I concluded that this would be the last; that is the first to be put down when the rooms below were being ceiled.  I pierced it with some difficulty, as, the hole being ten inches deep, it had become troublesome to work the pike.  A thousand times I commended myself to the mercy of God.  Those Free-thinkers who say that praying is no good do not know what they are talking about; for I know by experience that, having prayed to God, I always felt myself grow stronger, which fact amply proves the usefulness of prayer, whether the renewal of strength come straight from God, or whether it comes only from the trust one has in Him.

On the 25th of June, on which day the Republic celebrates the wonderful appearance of St. Mark under the form of a winged lion in the ducal church, about three o’clock in the afternoon, as I was labouring on my belly at the hole, stark naked, covered with sweat, my lamp beside me.  I heard with mortal fear the shriek of a bolt and the noise of the door of the first passage.  It was a fearful moment!  I blew out my lamp, and leaving my bar in the hole I threw into it the napkin with the shavings it contained, and as swift as lightning I replaced my bed as best I could, and threw myself on it just as the door of my cell opened.  If Lawrence had come in two seconds sooner he would have caught me.  He was about to walk over me, but crying out dolefully I stopped him, and he fell back, saying,

“Truly, sir, I pity you, for the air here is as hot as a furnace.  Get up, and thank God for giving you such good company.”

“Come in, my lord, come in,” said he to the poor wretch who followed him.  Then, without heeding my nakedness, the fellow made the noble gentleman enter, and he seeing me to be naked, sought to avoid me while I vainly tried to find my shirt.

The new-comer thought he was in hell, and cried out,

“Where am I?  My God! where have I been put?  What heat!  What a stench!  With whom am I?”

Lawrence made him go out, and asked me to put on my shirt to go into the garret for a moment.  Addressing himself to the new prisoner, he said that, having to get a bed and other necessaries, he would leave us in the garret till he came back, and that, in the mean time, the cell would be freed from the bad smell, which was only oil.  What a start it gave me as I heard him utter the word “oil.”  In my hurry I had forgotten to snuff the wick after blowing it out.  As Lawrence asked me no questions about it, I concluded that he knew all, and the accursed Jew must have betrayed me.  I thought myself lucky that he was not able to tell him any more.

From that time the repulsion which I had felt for Lawrence disappeared.

After putting on my shirt and dressing-gown, I went out and found my new companion engaged in writing a list of what he wanted the gaoler to get him.  As soon as he saw me, he exclaimed, “Ah! it’s Casanova.”  I, too, recognised him as the Abbe and Count Fenarolo, a man of fifty, amiable, rich, and a favourite in society.  He embraced me, and when I told him that I should have expected to see anybody in that place rather than him, he could not keep back his tears, which made me weep also.