as she had now fallen asleep, he was going to lie down himself, and
try to get a little rest. This occurred early in the morning; and
Mendez rode on, saying that he should call as he came back in the
evening, to inquire how his sister was. Upon this Malfi went to bed,
where he remained some hours--indeed till he received a message from
his wife, begging him to go to her. When he entered the room, the
first question she asked was whether Gaspar was gone to Aquila; and
on being told that he was, she said she was very sorry for it, for
that she had dreamed she saw a man with a mask lying in wait to rob
him.

'I saw the man as distinctly as possible,' she said, 'but I could
not see his face for the mask; and I saw the place, so that I'm sure
if I were taken there I should recognise it.'

Her husband told her not to mind her dreams, and that this one was
doubtless suggested by the circumstance that had occurred the year
before. 'But,' said he, 'Ripa's safely locked up in jail now, and
there's no danger.'

Nevertheless the dream appears to have made so deep an impression on
the sick woman's fancy, that she never let her husband rest till he
promised to go with his own farm-servant to meet her brother--a
compliance which was at length won from him by her saying that she
had seen the man crouching behind a low wall that surrounded a
half-built church; 'and close by,' she added, 'there was a
direction-post with something written on it, but I could not read
what it was.'

Now it happened that on the horse-road to Aquila, which Faustina