racking my brains for some issue from the dilemma. I was awakened
from my dreams by a servant who announced that dinner was served, and
that his master awaited my coming to present me to his guests. While
hastily dressing, I resolved at the first opportunity to confide frankly
in Chigi and to take his advice in the matter. Having thus lightly
shifted the responsibility from my mind, and not being able to think of
any better method of concealment, I once more placed the casket within
the melon with the intention of returning for it in the course of the
evening, and so hastened to my friend's table.

Here what was my astonishment at being presented to the very persons who
had figured in my adventure, and who proved to be Messer Bernardo
Dovizio, Chancellor of his Eminence Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and
his niece Maria, whose beauty was somewhat lessened by weariness and the
traces of recent tears. The Chancellor, also,--who to my relief did not
recognise me,--was by no means in good form, nor did he regale us with
any of those witty stories for which he is so justly famed, but sighed
and groaned between every mouthful. His misfortune had so afflicted him
that he could not keep silence, and disregarding my presence, which
indeed he hardly noticed, he poured forth the cause of his woe. The gems
which he had lost were a part of the famous collection of Lorenzo de'
Medici, which his son, the Cardinal Giovanni, had carried with him in
his flight from Florence, and was now secretly sending by his Chancellor
in the expectation of pledging them to Chigi, in return for bills of
exchange which would serve him in good stead during his exile in France.

The faithful Dovizio, devoted to the Cardinal's service, as he had been
to that of his father, was in an agony of despair. "I will bring this
highwayman to the gallows," he continually repeated. "I will move heaven
and earth to discover the villain."

"Have you any guess as to whom he may be?" I asked, for the humour of
the matter grew apace upon me.

"Certainly not of his name," replied Chigi, "but the description given
by my friend is so exact that he cannot fail to be discovered."

"A man of gigantic stature," repeated the Chancellor, "with eyes of
green fire gleaming from under his matted hair, a raucous voice which I
could not fail to recognise; and on his croup an enormous baboon, as
dangerous and malignant a beast as his master, trained also to like acts
of brigandage, f