nowing that therein chance was working for our escape, and
was sitting down listening to the idle talk of the monk, when I heard the
jingling of keys. Much perturbed I got up and put my eye to a chink in
the door, and saw a man with a great bunch of keys in his hand mounting
leisurely up the stairs. I told the monk not to open his mouth, to keep
well behind me, and to follow my steps. I took my pike, and concealing it
in my right sleeve I got into a corner by the door, whence I could get
out as soon as it was opened and run down the stairs. I prayed that the
man might make no resistance, as if he did I should be obliged to fell
him to the earth, and I determined to do so.

The door opened; and the poor man as soon as he saw me seemed turned to a
stone. Without an instant's delay and in dead silence, I made haste to
descend the stairs, the monk following me. Avoiding the appearance of a
fugitive, but walking fast, I went by the giants' Stairs, taking no
notice of Father Balbi, who kept cabling: out "To the church! to the
church!"

The church door was only about twenty paces from the stairs, but the
churches were no longer sanctuaries in Venice; and no one ever took
refuge in them. The monk knew this, but fright had deprived him of his
faculties. He told me afterwards that the motive which impelled him to go
to the church was the voice of religion bidding him seek the horns of the
altar.

"Why didn't you go by yourself?" said I.

"I did not, like to abandon you," but he should rather have said, "I did
not like to lose the comfort of your company."

The safety I sought was beyond the borders of the Republic, and
thitherward I began to bend my steps. Already there in spirit, I must
needs be there in body also. I went straight towards the chief door of
the palace, and looking at no one that might be tempted to look at me I
got to the canal and entered the first gondola that I came across,
shouting to the boatman on the poop,

"I want to go to Fusina; be quick and, call another gondolier."

This was soon done, and while the gondola was being got off I sat down on
the seat in the middle, and Balbi at the side. The odd appearance of the
monk, without a hat and with a fine cloak on his shoulders, with my
unseasonable attire, was enough to make people take us for an astrologer
and his man.

As soon as we had passed the custom-house, the gondoliers began to row
with a will along the Giudecca Canal, by which we must pass t