e house after midnight,' said Pignaver.
'Did you hear any noise?'

'I should think I did!' cried Pina promptly. 'I was going to tell your
lordship of it. I was up with the young lady, and when the first squall
was over and she was more quiet, I thought I would just come in here to
see if any water had run in under the window as it sometimes does. Just
then I saw a glare of light beyond the garden wall, and I opened the
window at once and heard the Signor of the Night challenging a thief,
and directly afterwards there was a splash in the canal, and then
silence, and the light went away slowly. I hope the man was drowned, my
lord!'

While she was speaking, Pignaver had nodded repeatedly, for her little
story bore the stamp of truth.

'I grieve to say that the villain got away,' he answered. 'At daybreak
an officer from the Signors of the Night was waiting downstairs to
inform me of the attempt. The Signors' boat searched the canal for the
body of the man during more than an hour, but found nothing. He must
have been on the garden wall when he was seen, and he threw himself into
the water to escape, leaving the rope by which he had climbed up.'

'Mercy!' cried Pina. 'We might have all been murdered in our beds!'

'No one shall get upon that wall again,' answered the master of the
house. 'I will have the coping stuck full of broken glass from end to
end before night.'

'Would it not be well to set a watch in the garden, too, my lord? We
should sleep soundly then!'

'We shall see, we shall see,' answered Pignaver, repeating the words
slowly, as he went off. 'We shall see,' he said once more, as he went
out.

As soon as he was gone, Pina hastened to Ortensia's room.

'He is safe!' she cried as she entered. 'They searched the canal for a
whole hour, and could not find him!'

Ortensia uttered a little cry and sat up in bed suddenly; but she could
scarcely believe the news, till Pina had repeated all that the Senator
had said. When she heard that the wall was to be crowned with broken
glass, however, her face fell, for she saw in a flash of imagination how
Stradella would climb up confidently in the dark and would cut his hand
to the bone when he grasped the jagged points on the top.

'You must warn him!' cried Ortensia. 'You must go out and find him, and
tell him not to come again!'

'I will find him,' answered Pina.

They had never spoken of Stradella before the night that was just past.
Day after day, while t