So Valeria was the name of the heroine of the donkey episode. As she
held a small oil-lamp aloft, I perceived that the room in which I was to
spend the night had more the appearance of a cellar than a chamber; it
had been excavated on two sides from the bank, on the third there was a
small hole about six inches square, apparently communicating with another
room, and on the fourth was the door by which I had entered, and which
opened into the kitchen and general living-room of the inhabitants. There
was a heap of onions running to seed, the fagots of firewood which
Valeria had brought that afternoon, and an old cask or two.

"Won't you give him some kind of a bed?" she asked Croppo.

"Bah! he can sleep on the onions," responded that worthy. "If he had
been more civil and intelligent he should have had something to eat. You
three," he went on, turning to the other men, "sleep in the kitchen, and
watch that the prisoner does not escape. The door has a strong bolt
besides. Come, Valeria."

And the pair disappeared, leaving me in a dense gloom, strongly pervaded
by an odour of fungus and decaying onions. Groping into one of the
casks, I found some straw, and spreading it on a piece of plank, I
prepared to pass the night sitting with my back to the driest piece of
wall I could find, which happened to be immediately under the airhole, a
fortunate circumstance, as the closeness was often stifling. I had
probably been dozing for some time in a sitting position, when I felt
something tickle the top of my head. The idea that it might be a large
spider caused me to start, when stretching up my hand, it came in contact
with what seemed to be a rag, which I had not observed. Getting
carefully up, I perceived a faint light gleaming through the aperture,