her tokens agreed
upon between you, that Mariana must observe?' said the duke. 'No,
none,' said Isabel, 'only to go when it is dark. I have told him my
time can be but short; for I have made him think a servant comes along
with me, and that this servant is persuaded I come about my brother.'
The duke commended her discreet management, and she, turning to
Mariana, said: 'Little have you to say to Angelo, when you depart from
him, but soft and low: Remember now my brother!'

Mariana was that night conducted to the appointed place by Isabel, who
rejoiced that she had, as she supposed, by this device preserved both
her brother's life and her own honour. But that her brother's life was
safe the duke was not well satisfied, and therefore at midnight he
again repaired to the prison, and it was well for Claudio that he did
so, else would Claudio have that night been beheaded; for soon after
the duke entered the prison, an order came from the cruel deputy,
commanding that Claudio should be beheaded, and his head sent to him by
five o'clock in the morning. But the duke persuaded the provost to put
off the execution of Claudio, and to deceive Angelo, by sending him the
head of a man who died that morning in the prison. And to prevail upon
the provost to agree to this, the duke, whom still the provost
suspected not to be anything more or greater than he seemed, showed the
provost a letter written with the duke's hand, and sealed with his
seal, which when the provost saw, he concluded this friar must have
some secret order from the absent duke, and therefore he consented to
spare Claudio; and he cut off the dead man's head, and carried it to
Angelo.

Then the duke in his own name, wrote to Angelo a letter, saying, that
certain accidents had put a stop to his journey, and that he should be
in Vienna by the following morning, requiring Angelo to meet him at the
entrance of the city, there to deliver up his authority; and the duke
also commanded it to be proclaimed, that if any of his subjects craved
redress for injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the
street on his first entrance into the city.

Early in the morning Isabel came to the prison, and the duke, who there
awaited her coming, for secret reasons thought it good to tell her that
Claudio was beheaded; therefore when Isabel inquired if Angelo had sent
the pardon for her brother, he said: 'Angelo has released Claudio from
this world. His head is off, and sent to t