to look as if, after all, he must choose between
returning to prison and flinging himself from the roof into the canal.
He was almost in despair, when in his wanderings his attention was
caught by a dormer window on the canal side, about two-thirds of the way
down the slope of the roof. With infinite precaution he lowered himself
down the steep, slippery incline until he was astride of the little
dormer roof. Leaning well forward, he discovered that a slender grating
barred the leaded panes of the window itself, and for a moment this
grating gave him pause.

Midnight boomed just then from the Church of Saint Mark, like a reminder
that but seven hours remained in which to conquer this and further
difficulties that might confront him, and in which to win clear of
that place, or else submit to a resumption of his imprisonment under
conditions, no doubt, a hundredfold more rigorous.

Lying flat on his stomach, and hanging far over, so as to see what he
was doing, he worked one point of his spontoon into the sash of the
grating, and, levering outwards, he strained until at last it came away
completely in his hands. After that it was an easy matter to shatter the
little latticed window.

Having accomplished so much, he turned, and, using his spontoon as
before, he crawled back to the summit of the roof, and made his way
rapidly along this to the spot where he had left Balbi. The monk,
reduced by now to a state of blending despair, terror, and rage, greeted
Casanova in terms of the grossest abuse for having left him there so
long.

"I was waiting only for daylight," he concluded, "to return to prison."

"What did you think had become of me?" asked Casanova.

"I imagined that you had tumbled off the roof."

"And is this abuse the expression of your joy at finding yourself
mistaken?"

"Where have you been all this time?" the monk counter-questioned
sullenly.

"Come with me and you shall see."

And taking up his bundle again, Casanova led his companion forward until
they were in line with the dormer. There Casanova showed him what he
had done, and consulted him as to the means to be adopted to enter the
attic. It would be too risky for them to allow themselves to drop from
the sill, since the height of the window from the floor was unknown to
them, and might be considerable. It would be easy for one of them to
lower the other by means of the rope. But it was not apparent how,
hereafter, the other was to follow. Thus