he understood nothing else, as he could not make out how I could have arranged with the supposed angel to come and go at certain fixed times.  He listened attentively to the count, who told us we were going to our destruction, and like the coward that he was, he began to plan how to escape from the dangerous journey.  I told the monk to put his bundle together while I was making the hole in the roof by the side of the loft.

At eight o’clock, without needing any help, my opening was made.  I had broken up the beams, and the space was twice the size required.  I got the plate of lead off in one piece.  I could not do it by myself, because it was riveted.  The monk came to my aid, and by dint of driving the bar between the gutter and the lead I succeeded in loosening it, and then, heaving at it with our shoulders, we beat it up till the opening was wide enough.  On putting my head out through the hole I was distressed to see the brilliant light of the crescent moon then entering in its first quarter.  This was a piece of bad luck which must be borne patiently, and we should have to wait till midnight, when the moon would have gone to light up the Antipodes.  On such a fine night as this everybody would be walking in St. Mark’s Place, and I dared not shew myself on the roof as the moonlight would have thrown a huge shadow of me on the place, and have drawn towards me all eyes, especially those of Messer-Grande and his myrmidons, and our fine scheme would have been brought to nothing by their detestable activity.  I immediately decided that we could not escape till after the moon set; in the mean time I prayed for the help of God, but did not ask Him to work any miracles for me.  I was at the mercy of Fortune, and I had to take care not to give her any advantages; and if my scheme ended in failure I should be consoled by the thought that I had not made a single mistake.  The moon would set at eleven and sunrise was at six, so we had seven hours of perfect darkness at our service; and though we had a hard task, I considered that in seven hours it would be accomplished.

I told Father Balbi that we could pass the three hours in talking to Count Asquin.  I requested him to go first and ask the count to lend me thirty sequins, which would be as necessary to me as my pike had been hitherto.  He carried my message, and a few minutes after came and asked me to go myself, as the count wished to talk to me alone.  The poor old man began by saying with great politeness that I really stood in no need of money to escape, that he had none, that he had a large family, that if I was killed the money would be lost, with a thousand other futilities of the same kind to disguise his avarice, or the dislike he felt to parting with his money.  My reply lasted for half an hour, and contained some excellent arguments, which never have had and never will have any force, as the finest weapons of oratory are blunted when used against one of the strongest of the passions.