myself slide softly down in a straight line I soon found myself astride
on top of the dormer-roof. Then grasping the sides I stretched my head
over, and succeeded in seeing and touching a small grating, behind which
was a window of square panes of glass joined with thin strips of lead. I
did not trouble myself about the window, but the grating, small as it
was, appeared an insurmountable difficulty, failing a file, and I had
only my pike.

I was thoroughly perplexed, and was beginning to lose courage, when an
incident of the simplest and most natural kind came to my aid and
fortified my resolution.

Philosophic reader, if you will place yourself for a moment in my
position, if you will share the sufferings which for fifteen months had
been my lot, if you think of my danger on the top of a roof, where the
slightest step in a wrong direction would have cost me my life, if you
consider the few hours at my disposal to overcome difficulties which
might spring up at any moment, the candid confession I am about to make
will not lower me in your esteem; at any rate, if you do not forget that
a man in an anxious and dangerous position is in reality only half
himself.

It was the clock of St. Mark's striking midnight, which, by a violent
shock, drew me out of the state of perplexity I had fallen into. The
clock reminded me that the day just beginning was All Saints' Day--the
day of my patron saint (at least if I had one)--and the prophecy of my
confessor came into my mind. But I confess that what chiefly strengthened
me, both bodily and mentally, was the profane oracle of my beloved
Ariosto: 'Fra il fin d'ottobre, a il capo di novembre'.