that a step backwards would be
fatal. The poor monk sighed, and clinging still to my waist-band, we
climbed on again.

After having got over fifteen or sixteen sheets of lead with immense
difficulty, we reached the ridge, on which I perched myself astride,
and Balbi did the same. We had our backs to the island of San Giorgio
Maggiore, and two hundred yards in front of us we saw the numerous
cupolas of the church of Saint Mark, which is in fact part of the
Ducal Palace; for the church of Saint Mark is, properly speaking, no
more than the Doge's chapel, and certainly no sovereign can boast of a
finer one. I began by relieving myself of my load, and desired my
companion to follow my example. He tucked his bundle of ropes under
him as best he might, but wanting to take off his hat, which
inconvenienced him, he managed so badly that it rolled from ledge to
ledge, and went to join the bundle of clothes in the canal. My poor
comrade was in despair.

"A bad omen!" he exclaimed. "Here I am at once without a shirt,
without a hat, and bereft of a precious manuscript containing a most
curious and unknown history of the festivals at the Ducal Palace."

I, less disposed to be fierce than I had been when I was climbing,
calmly assured him that these two little accidents had nothing so
extraordinary about them as that a superstitious spirit should regard
them as ominous; that I did not think them so, and that they did not
in the least discourage me.

"They should serve you, my good fellow," said I, "as a warning to be
prudent and wise, and to suggest to you that God certainly protects
us; for if your hat, instead of tumbling to the right, had slipped off
to the left, we should have been lost. It would have fallen into the
courtyard, where the guards must have found it, and it would of course
have told them that there must be some one on the roof. We should have
been recaptured at once."

After sitting some minutes looking about me, I desired the monk to
remain motionless till I should return, and I made my way forward,
shuffling along astride on the roof without any difficulty, my bolt in
my hand. I spent above an hour going about the roof, examining and
observing every corner, but in vain; nowhere did I see anything to
which I could attach a cord. I was in the greatest perplexity. I
could not for a moment think of the canal, nor of the palace
courtyard, and among the many cupolas of the church I saw nothing but
precipitous wal