During that night, however, somebody, vaguely described as "a personage," was devising an elaborate scheme of murder. Don Gabriele is sure it could not have been the Cardinal, but he does not tell us who it was. Perhaps some enemy of the worthy Cardinal, designing to filch his credit while he slept, posted the murderers in the very Church of the Carmine, without the knowledge of either the good Fathers or their excellent Archbishop! There at any rate they were, and in the morning Mas'aniello, going into the church, was greeted by a salvo of balls, every one of which, by a miracle naturally set down to the credit of the Madonna della Carmine, flew past him harmlessly. The people, having wreaked summary vengeance on the would-be murderers, were unreasonable enough to suspect the Cardinal of complicity in the crime. But that good man had abundant evidence that it was not so, and Mas'aniello, yielding to reverence again, publicly declared his contrition for the unworthy suspicion he had formed. Whereupon the Cardinal, who was too great to harbour resentment, mounted the steeple of the Carmine and blessed the crowd. But still the identity of the personage is not revealed. Don Gabriele is contemptuous of his folly in thinking to kill the hydra by a premature and badly devised attack. When the personage tried next his scheme was better laid. Meantime all went on wheels. An audience with the Viceroy was appointed, and Mas'aniello, having with great difficulty been persuaded to array himself in garments of silver cloth, which splendour he considered quite unsuited to his humble origin, mounted a richly caparisoned steed and rode towards the palace at the head of an innumerable crowd of people. What a change of state was there! On Sunday morning this fellow was among the basest of a great city, not even a fish-seller, but the ragged attendant who provided scraps of paper in which to wrap up the fish. On Wednesday, clothed like an emperor and followed by a crowd which adored him, he rode in triumph to meet the Viceroy of the proudest monarchy on earth. Surely never, save in the wild fantasy of Eastern fairy tales, has fortune turned her wheel so swiftly, or given more lightly what she caught no less rapidly away.