of kind attentions towards his countryman, allowing
him a certain amount of liberty on parole, within the Castle walls.
Growing suspicious later, he kept his prisoner closer, but after a time
he restored him to comparative liberty.

When Benvenuto found how changeable the governor's humour was, he set
himself to think over matters seriously. 'For,' he reflected, 'should a
fresh fit of anger or suspicion cause him to confine me more strictly, I
should feel myself released from my word, and it may be as well to be
prepared.'

Accordingly he ordered some new coarse linen sheets to be brought him,
but when soiled he did not send them back. When his servants asked for
the sheets so as to have them washed he bade them say no more, as he had
given them to one of the poor soldiers on guard, who would be sure to
get into trouble if the matter were known. By degrees he emptied the
straw out of his mattress, burning a little of it at a time in his
fireplace, and replacing it with the sheets, which he cut into strips
some inches wide. As soon as he thought these strips were long enough
for his purpose, he told his servants that he had given all the sheets
away, and that in future they had better bring him finer linen, which he
would be sure to return.

Now it so happened that every year the governor was subject to a most
distressing illness, which, for the time being, entirely deprived him of
his reason. When it began to come on, he would talk and chatter
incessantly. Each year he had some fresh hallucination, at one time
fancying himself an oil-jar, at another a frog, and skipping about like
one. Again, another time, he declared he was dead, and wished to be
buried; and so, year by year, he was the victim of some new delusion.
This year he imagined he was a bat, and as he walked about he uttered
little half-smothered cries like a bat, and flapped his hands and moved
his body as though about to fly. His faithful old servants and his
doctors noticed this, and, thinking change of ideas and variety of
conversation might do him good, they frequently fetched Benvenuto to
entertain him.

One day the governor asked Benvenuto whether it had ever occurred to him
to desire to fly, and; on being answered in the affirmative, he inquired
further how he should set about it.

Benvenuto replied that the only flying creature it would be at all
possible to imitate artificially was the bat, on which the poor man
cried out, 'True, true, that's