othing so much as to foregather with him, but had no mind to
make any one a confidant of her passion, bethought herself of a rare
device to apprize him of the means; to wit, she wrote him a letter,
wherein she showed him how he should do to foregather with her on the
ensuing day, and placing it in the hollow of a cane, gave the letter
jestingly to Guiscardo, saying, 'Make thee a bellows thereof for thy
serving-maid, wherewith she may blow up the fire to-night.' Guiscardo
took the cane and bethinking himself that she would not have given it
him nor spoken thus, without some cause, took his leave and returned
therewith to his lodging. There he examined the cane and seeing it to
be cleft, opened it and found therein the letter, which having read
and well apprehended that which he had to do, he was the joyfullest
man alive and set about taking order how he might go to her, according
to the fashion appointed him of her.

There was, beside the prince's palace, a grotto hewn out of the rock
and made in days long agone, and to this grotto some little light was
given by a tunnel[219] by art wrought in the mountain, which latter,
for that the grotto was abandoned, was well nigh blocked at its mouth
with briers and weeds that had overgrown it. Into this grotto one
might go by a privy stair which was in one of the ground floor rooms
of the lady's apartment in the palace and which was shut in by a very
strong door. This stair was so out of all folk's minds, for that it
had been unused from time immemorial, that well nigh none remembered
it to be there; but Love, to whose eyes there is nothing so secret but
it winneth, had recalled it to the memory of the enamoured lady, who,
that none should get wind of the matter, had laboured sore many days
with such tools as she might command, ere she could make shift to open
the door; then, going down alone thereby into the grotto and seeing
the tunnel, she sent to bid Guiscardo study to come to her thereby and
acquainted him with the height which herseemed should be from the
mouth thereof to the ground.

[Footnote 219: Or airshaft (_spiraglio_).]

To this end Guiscardo promptly made ready a rope with certain knots
and loops, whereby he might avail to descend and ascend, and donning a
leathern suit, that might defend him from the briers, he on the
ensuing night repaired, without letting any know aught of the matter,
to the mouth of the tunnel. There making one end of the rope fast to a
stout