Impatiently I awaited the night. At the same hour as on the previous night, I went to the Ponte Vecchio with the mantle on my arm. At the last stroke of the clock, a form approached out of the darkness. It was undoubtedly the man I had met the night before.
"Yes," replied I; "but it cost me a hundred sequins cash."
"I know it," was the reply, "look here, there are four hundred."
He walked with me up to the broad balustrade of the bridge, and counted out the gold pieces. They glistened brightly in the moonlight; their gleam rejoiced my heart. Oh, I dreamed not that it was the last joy it would ever experience. I put the money in my pocket, and attempted to get a good look at the stranger; but he wore a mask, through which dark eyes darted a formidable look on me.
"I thank you, sir, for your kindness," said I. "What now do you require from me? But I say to you beforehand that it must not be any thing wrong."
"Your anxiety is needless," replied he, as he placed the mantle on his shoulders. "I need your services as a doctor; still, not for a living patient, but for a dead one."
"How can that be?" cried I, in astonishment.
"I came with my sister from a distant country," began the stranger, beckoning me at the same time to follow him. "I lived with her here at the house of a friend. My sister had been ill, and yesterday she died suddenly. Her relatives will bury her to-morrow. But in accordance with an old custom in our family, all of its members must be buried in the tomb of their ancestors. Many who died in foreign lands were embalmed and brought home. I will permit our relatives here to keep my sister's body, but I must at least take to my father the head of his daughter, that he may see her once more."
This custom of cutting off the heads of beloved relatives seemed horrible to me; still I thought best not to offer any objections, lest the stranger should feel insulted. I therefore told him that I was acquainted with the method of embalming the dead, and requested him to conduct me to the deceased. Still I could not refrain from inquiring why all this was to be conducted so secretly and at night? He answered that his relatives, holding his views on this subject to be wicked, would prevent him from carrying them out by day; but when the head was once removed, they could say little more on the subject. Of course he might have brought me the head himself but a natural feeling held him back from removing it.