"What, did you here meet with some disaster?"

"I did, sir; a horrible one, sir; and not only I. God protect you
from it, God protect you!" And he took himself off in haste.

At this moment it was impossible for me to forget the words of the
poor beggarman. He was present there, too, the next year, when I
ascended the scaffold, whence I heard read to me the sentence of
death, and that it had been commuted for fifteen years hard
imprisonment. Assuredly, if I had been inclined ever so little to
superstition, I should have thought much of the mendicant,
predicting to me with so much energy, as he did, and insisting that
this was a place of misfortune. As it is, I have merely noted it
down for a curious incident. We ascended the palace; Count B- spoke
to the judges, then, handing me over to the jailer, after embracing
me with much emotion, he bade me farewell.



CHAPTER XXIII.



I followed the jailer in silence. After turning through a number of
passages, and several large rooms, we arrived at a small staircase,
which brought us under the Piombi, those notorious state prisons,
dating from the time of the Venetian republic.

There the jailer first registered my name, and then locked me up in
the room appointed for me. The chambers called I Piombi consist of