colonnade of his palace, heard the scandal, and ordered us to be placed in the inner dungeon of the Inquisition, and brought up for trial the same evening.
"Silence, wretched slave."
"The Public Prosecutor accused us, not only of the black art itself, but of being disturbers of the public peace and conspirators against the safety of the State. 'What have we come to,' he declaimed, 'when our senators and patricians begin to change their heads as often as their wigs? To lose the head is human. The history of the illustrious Republic is not poor in examples of senators and generals, aye, and Doges too, who have suffered this misfortune—but an exchange of heads, that is, indeed, an unparalleled proceeding! What endless upheavals of the Constitution may not be expected when noble and common blood begins to mingle in the same body? What endless confusion of aristocratic and democratic principles in the same man! A shortsighted leniency in this matter may mean the disruption of the State, the crumbling into atoms of the Republic. I decree therefore the death by beheadal of both the criminals."
"The Secretary of the Inquisition informed us of our doom; at midnight we were to pay the penalty of the little doctor's mistake. Ah, what mortal has ever met a fate like ours? Who is there can boast of being, like us, beheaded twice within the space of four-and-twenty hours?
"He tried to comfort me."
"The keeper of the prison was, as it happened, an old friend of mine, and a second cousin. The unspeakable pickle I was in moved him even to tears, and he tried to comfort me by the assurance that the pain of beheadal was nothing to speak of—a short electric shock—a tickling sensation made piquant with a dash of pain—that was all! But I shook my head sadly, and wept. Of all this I already knew somewhat more than he could tell me. Suddenly a glorious thought struck me. After our miraculous cure, as I now remembered, my fingers, guided either by the directing brain of Orazio or by the
