whistled and
said:

"'As I expected, it is written that you are to be drowned to-morrow,
unless you carry this horn of mine hung to your neck all day.

"'Quando ti trovi nel pericolo,
Suona questo corno piccolo,
E tu sarai salvato,
Non sarai affogato!'

"'If thou find'st thyself forlorn,
Blow aloud this little horn,
And thou wilt be safe and sound,
For with it thou'lt not be drowned.'

"Saying this, he solemnly handed the horn to the cavalier, drank off a
goblet of muscato, wiped his lips, bowed a ceremonious good-night, and,
as was his wont, vanished with dignity up the chimney.

"The gentleman was more troubled by this prediction than he liked to
admit. I need not say that the next day he did not go near the Arno,
though it was as dry as a bone; nay, he kept out of a bath, and was
almost afraid to wash his face.

"At last he got the fancy that some enemies or villains would burst into
his lonely house, bind him hand and foot carry him far away, and drown
him in some lonely stream, or perhaps in the sea. He remembered just
such a case. We all remember just such cases when we don't want to.
That was it, decidedly.

"Then he had a happy thought. There was a little hiding-chamber,
centuries old, in the palazzo, known only to himself, with a concealed
door. He would go and hide there. He shouted for joy, and when he
entered the room, he leaped with a great bound from the threshold of the
door, down and over three or four steps, into the middle of the little
room.

"Now he did not know that in the _cantina_ or cellar below this
hiding-place there was an immense _tino_, or vat, containing hundreds of
barrels of wine, such as are used to hold the rough wine ere it is drawn
off and 'made;' nor that the floor was extremely decayed, so that when he
came down on it with a bounce, it gave way, and he found himself in the
cellar over head and ears in wine.

"And, truly, for a minute he deemed that he was drowning in earnest. And
the sides of the vat were so high that he could not climb out. But while
swimming and struggling for life, he caught between his thumb and finger
at a nail in the side, and to this he held, crying as loud as he could
shout for aid. But no one came, and he was just beginning to despair,
when he thought of the horn!

"It still hung from his neck, and pouring out the wine, he blew on it,
and there came forth such a tremendous, appalling, and unearthly b