"My good friend," said the man in the cloak, "excuse me for saying
that you seem to me precisely in the mood to commit some wild act."
"I have resolved to stop at nothing to restore a poor devil to liberty who has got into this scrape solely from having served me. I should despise myself as a coward, did I desert the brave fellow."
"And what do you mean to do?"
"To surround the scaffold with twenty men, who, at a signal from me, will rush forward directly Peppino is brought for execution, and, stiletto in hand, carry off the prisoner."
"That seems to me as hazardous as uncertain, and convinces me my scheme is far better than yours."
"And what is your excellency's project?"
"Just this! I will so give two thousand piastres to some one I know, and he shall obtain a respite till next year for Peppino; and during that year, another skillfully placed one thousand piastres shall afford him the means of escaping from his prison."
"And do you feel sure of succeeding!"
"Pardieu!" exclaimed the man in the cloak, suddenly expressing himself in French.
"What did your excellency say?" inquired the other,
"I said, my good fellow, that I would do more single-handed by the means of my gold than you and all your troop could effect with their stilettos, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses. Leave me, then, to act."
"All right, but we shall be in readiness in case your excellency should fail."
"Take what precautions you please, but rely upon my obtaining the reprieve."
"Remember, the execution is fixed for the day after to-morrow, and that you have but one day."
"And what then! Is not a day divided into twenty-four hours, each hour into sixty minutes, and every minute subdivided into sixty seconds! Now, in eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds very many things can be done."
"And how shall I know whether your excellency has succeeded or not?"
"Oh! that is very easily arranged; I have engaged the three lower windows at the Cafe Eospoli; should I have obtained the respite, the two outside windows will be hung with yellow damasks, and the center with white, having a large cross in red."
"And whom will you employ to carry the reprieve to the officer directing the execution!"
"Send one of your men disguised as a penitent, and I will give it to him; his dress will procure him the means of approaching the scaffold.
