ls leading to no open space. To get beyond the church
to the Canonica I should have had to surmount such steep slopes that I
had no hope of achieving it, and it was natural that I should reject
as impossible everything that did not seem feasible. The situation in
which I found myself required daring, but absolutely no rashness. It
was such a dilemma as I imagine can have no parallel for difficulty in
any moral question.

However, I had to come to some conclusion: I must either get away or
return to my cell, never probably to leave it again; or again, throw
myself into the canal. In this predicament a great deal must be left
to chance, and I must begin somewhere. I fixed my eyes on a dormer
window on the side towards the canal, and about two-thirds of the way
down. It was far enough from the spot we had started from to make me
think that the loft it lighted was not connected with the prison I had
broken out of. It could light only an attic, inhabited or vacant, over
some room in the palace, where, when day should dawn, the doors no
doubt would be opened. I was morally certain that the attendants in
the palace, even those of the Doge himself, who should happen to see
us, would be eager to favor our escape rather than place us in the
hands of justice, even if they had recognized us as the greatest of
state criminals; so horrible was the inquisition in their eyes.

With this idea I decided on inspecting that window; so, letting myself
slip gently down, I soon was astride on the little roof. Then resting
my hands on the edge, I stretched my head out and succeeded in seeing
and touching a little barred grating, behind which there was a window
glazed with small panes set in lead. The window did not trouble me,
but the grating, slight as it was, seemed to me an insurmountable
difficulty, for without a file I could not get through the bars, and I
only had my crowbar. I was checked, and began to lose heart, when a
perfectly simple and natural incident revived my spirit....

It was the clock of Saint Mark's at this moment striking midnight
which roused my spirit, and by a sudden shock brought me out of the
perplexed frame of mind in which I found myself. That clock reminded
me that the morning about to dawn was that of All Saints' Day; that
consequently of my saint's day--if indeed I had a patron saint--and
my Jesuit confessor's prophecy recurred to my mind. But I own that
what tended most to restore my courage, and really incre