Holy
Virgin."

"You may have dreamt it all."

"Nay, not so. Will you swear to me to spy no more?"

Instead of answering he went off to sleep, and did not awake for two
hours after, when he asked if he could put off taking the oath. I asked
of him,

"You can put off taking it," I said, "till the angel enters to set me
free; but if you do not then renounce by an oath the infamous trade which
has brought you here, and which will end by bringing you to the gallows,
I shall leave you in the cell, for so the Mother of God commands, and if
you do not obey you will lose her protection."

As I had expected, I saw an expression of satisfaction on his hideous
features, for he was quite certain that the angel would not come. He
looked at me with a pitying air. I longed to hear the hour strike. The
play amused me intensely, for I was persuaded that the approach of the
angel would set his miserable wits a-reeling. I was sure, also, that the
plan would succeed if Lawrence had not forgotten to give the monk the
books, and this was not likely.

An hour before the time appointed I was fain to dine. I only drank water,
and Soradaci drank all the wine and consumed all the garlic I had, and
thus made himself worse.

As soon as I heard the first stroke of two I fell on my knees, ordering
him, in an awful voice, to do the like. He obeyed, looking at me in a
dazed way. When I heard the first slight noise I examined, "Lo! the angel
cometh!" and fell down on my face, and with a hearty fisticuff forced him
into the same position. The noise of breaking was plainly heard, and for
a quarter of an hour I kept in that troublesome position, and if the
circumstances had been different I should have laughed to see how
motionless the creature was; but I restrained myself, remembering my
design of completely turning the fellow's head, or at least of obsessing
him for a time. As soon as I got up I knelt and allowed him to imitate
me, and I spent three hours in saying the rosary to him. From time to
time he dozed off, wearied rather by his position than by the monotony of
the prayer, but during the whole time he never interrupted me. Now and
again he dared to raise a furtive glance towards the ceiling. With a sort
of stupor on his face, he turned his head in the direction of the Virgin,
and the whole of his behaviour was for me the highest comedy. When I
heard the clock strike the hour for the work to cease, I said to him,

"Prostrate thyself, for