“‘My dear fellow,’ I said, ‘these two accidents, which are far from discouraging me, prove to you that God protects us; for if your hat, instead of falling to the right, had fallen to the left, we should have been lost: it would have fallen into the court-yard of the palace, where the guards would have found it, and we should, before long, have been retaken.’
“After passing some minutes looking right and left, I told the monk not to stir from there till I returned; and I advanced, carrying only my crowbar in my hand, along the summit of the roof without any difficulty. I spent nearly an hour on the roof, going from side to side, observing; but in vain, for I could nowhere find a point to which to fasten the end of the rope. I was in the greatest perplexity. The canal and the palace court-yard were both out of the question, and on the top of the church I could see only precipices which led to no opening. To go beyond the church I should have had to climb ascents so steep that I saw it was impossible.
“Yet it was necessary to do something--either to get out or to return to the dungeon, never, perhaps, to come out again, or to throw myself into the canal. My eye was caught by a garret window on the side next the canal, and about two-thirds of the way down the slope of the roof. It was far enough from the place whence I had come out to enable me to judge that the garret it gave light to did not belong to the inclosure of the prison I had broken out from. It must be a loft over some apartment of the palace, the doors of which I should naturally find open at daybreak. Under this impression I thought it right to have a look at the garret window; and, sliding down gently, I was soon astride of the little roof. Leaning on my hands, and stretching forward, I was able to see and touch a little grating, behind which was a window with small panes of glass set in lead. The window was nothing, but the grating seemed an invincible obstacle, for without a file I did not see how I could remove it. I was confounded, when a very simple and natural thing revived my spirits. The clock of St. Martin’s striking midnight was the phenomenon which produced this effect. The clock reminded me that All Saints’ Day was setting in, and being the feast of my patron saint, the prediction of my Jesuit confessor recurred to me: ‘_Know that you will not get out of this till the feast of the patron saint whose name you bear._’ But I own that what especially roused my courage and added to my strength was the profound oracle I had received from my beloved Ariosto: ‘_Fra il fin d’ottobre, e il capo di novembre._’