"'"You love the good red wine, Messer Attilio, and you love the good red gold. Is it not true? Which do you love the most?" And to this he answered me, "Surely the good red gold, _Ser Pittore_. For wine will not purchase _all_ one asks. There is nothing gold will not purchase--enough of it!" "'"Listen! Where are they going to hide me away? Do you know the Castello?" "'"I was born here. I can tell you all. There is good accommodation in the _sotterraneo_. It is extended, but it is not lofty. You will have company, but the living is poor, meagre. I have said that you would not see the sun again, but you may! For in one place is a slot, cut slantwise in the stone, that the guests of the Duke who come to stay may not want air. Through the slot, one day in the year only, and then but for a very little space, comes a ray from the sun in heaven. In the old days of the Warrior Duke, when there would be many prisoners of war, they would count the days until the hour of its coming, and then fight for a good place to see the gleam when it came. But the few you will find there will have little heart for that, or anything else." "'"Is that the only outlet?" "'"No! There is the door you go in by. One stoops, as one stoops to enter the little prisons of Venezia, deep below the water. And there is the _Buco della Fame_...." "That is to say," interjected Mr. Pelly, "The Hunger Hole, or Hunger Pit." "'"What is that?" I then asked. "'"What they were used to throw bones down, when they had made merry and sucked them dry, to the prisoners below. And there is a drain." "'"How large is it?" "'"Large enough for the rats to pass up--no larger. I used to watch them run in at the outlet, when I was a youngster. But the _Buco_--that is large enough for a man to pass up and down--a sort of well-hole. Not the _Ser Ferretti_ there; he would stick in it. I have seen it all, for my father was the gaoler in old days." "'"Listen now, _Ser Attilio_! You want the good red gold, in plenty. And you shall have it if you do my bidding. When you leave this--are you marking what I say?--go straight to _la Marta_, she who attends always on the _Duchessa_, and say to her simply this--that on the day I regain my liberty, there will be five hundred crowns for her. Tell her where I am. And for this service to me you shall receive...."'" Mr. Pelly stopped reading again. There was another gap; a portion of the manuscript was missing as before. He remarked upon the loss to the reader, apparently, of the whole account of the young man's first introduction to the dungeon, in which he seemed to have passed a considerable time--the best part of six months as far as could be made out--before we are able to follow his narrative.