of ulcers, but I cannot say whether it was thus the night before.  I did not much care to examine him to see if he were telling me the truth.  My cue was to pretend to believe him, and to make him hope for mercy.  I began by making him eat and drink.  The traitor most likely intended to deceive me, but as I was myself determined to deceive him it remained to be seen which was the a cuter.  I had planned an attack against which it was improbable that he could defend himself.

Assuming an inspired air, I said, “Be seated and take this soup, and afterwards I will tell you of your good fortune, for know that the Virgin of the Rosary appeared to me at day-break, and bids me pardon you.  Thou shalt not die but live, and shalt come out of this place with me.”  In great wonderment, and kneeling on the ground for want of a chair, he ate the soup with me, and afterwards seated himself on the bed to hear what I had to say.  Thus I spoke to him: 

“The grief I experienced at your dreadful treason made me pass a sleepless night, as the letters might condemn me to spend here the remnant of my days.  My only consolation, I confess, was the certainty that you would die here also before my eyes within three days.  Full of this thought not worthy of a Christian (for God bids us forgive our enemies) my weariness made me sleep, and in my sleep I had a vision.  I saw that Holy Virgin, Mother of God, whose likeness you behold—­I saw her before me, and opening her lips she spoke thus: 

“’Soradaci is a devotee of my Holy Rosary.  I protect him, and I will that you forgive him, and then the curse he has drawn on himself will cease.  In return for your generosity, I will order one of my angels to take the form of man, to come down from heaven, to break open the roof of your prison, and set you free within five or six days.  The angel will begin his task this day at two o’clock precisely, and he will work till half an hour before sunset, since he must ascend again into heaven while the daylight lasts.  When you come out of this place, take Soradaci with you, and have a care for him if he will renounce his business of spying.  Tell him all.’

“With these words the Holy Virgin vanished out of my sight, and I awoke.”

I spoke all the while with a serious face and the air of one inspired, and I saw that the traitor was petrified.  I then took my Book of Hours, sprinkled the cell with holy water, and pretended to pray, kissing from time to time the picture of the Virgin.  An hour afterwards the brute, who so far had not opened his mouth, asked me bluntly at what time the angel would come down from heaven, and if we should hear him breaking in the cell.

“I am certain that he will begin at two o’clock, that we shall hear him at his work, and that he will depart at the hour named by the Holy Virgin.”

“You may have dreamt it all.”

“Nay, not so.  Will you swear to me to spy no more?”

Instead of answering he went off to sleep, and did not awake for two hours after, when he asked if he could put off taking the oath.  I asked of him,