"I remembered," says he, "that I had heard it mentioned before I entered the prisons of the Holy Office, that the auto-da-fé was usually celebrated on the first Sunday in Advent, because, in the service for that day is read a portion of the gospel which describes the day of judgment; and the Inquisitors affect that this ceremony is its lively and natural prototype. I was also confident that there were several prisoners; the dead silence which reigns in this mansion having afforded me opportunity to ascertain, with tolerable exactness, how many doors were opened at the hours of repast. In addition to this, I was almost certain that an archbishop had arrived in the month of October, (the see having been vacant nearly thirty years,) from the extraordinary ringing of the bells of the cathedral for nine days successively; to which period, it is neither the custom of the churches in general, nor of that of Goa in particular, to extend the solemnization of any remarkable feast; and I knew that this prelate had been expected before my imprisonment. From all these reasons I inferred that I should be released in the beginning of December; but when I saw the first and the second Sundays in Advent pass, I began to fear that my liberation or punishment was postponed for another year.—Nevertheless I found, at a time when I least expected it, that I was likely to be set at liberty. "I remarked, that on Saturday, the 11th of January, 1676, as I gave my linen as usual to be washed, the officers declined taking it till the next day. On reflecting upon this unusual circumstance, and not being able satisfactorily to account for it, I concluded that the celebration of the auto-da-fé might take place on the morrow; and my opinion was the more confirmed, or rather converted into certainty, when immediately after vespers had chimed at the cathedral, the bell rang for matins, which had never happened before during my imprisonment, except on the eve of the feast of the holy sacrament. It may be supposed that joy would have begun to resume its place in my heart, when I believed that I was on the point of leaving the tomb in which I had been buried alive for two years; but the terror which was occasioned by the dreadful denunciations of the proctor, and the uncertainty of my fate, augmented my anxiety and grief to such a degree, that I passed the remainder of the day and part of the night under feelings which would have excited compassion in any but those into whose hands I had fallen.