"Then she told me, in broken English, which I shall not be able to write down in her words, news of astounding importance, which she had risked her life to bring to me. Even a man alone, however well armed, is not safe in the present disturbed state of the city. But to avoid the risk of passing the news through even one more person, she hastily flung her maid's long hooded-cloak over her ball-dress (they are going through the mockery of dancing at the Palace, and this is how she was able to slip out unobserved), and ran all the way here, chased twice or thrice by drunken or impudent fellows, but saved by the special Providence which guards the ignorant and helpless. She had left the dancing, and gone in search of the Queen, whom she knew to have been packing the famous Bourbon diamonds to send here; and not being able to find Her Majesty, and the dancing being weighed down by the spirit of depression which it was intended to remove, she had retired to her room, which has a room off it for her maid. She had taken off her slippers, and was about to disrobe, for which she needed her maid; but there was no response to her call, so she went to the woman's room, where to her surprise she found the cloak in which she came to me, with a message pinned on it--'Be sure to wear this and no one will challenge you.' She removed it to her own room, intending to question the woman as to what breach of duty she was contemplating, when she heard voices in the adjoining corridor, which had a window hereabouts, some six or seven feet from the ground, to give light, but no door. With her stockinged feet she could creep to it noiselessly, and then she overheard a conversation between her maid and one of the Mergellina family. "'Have you found out?' he asked. "'Yes: the Queen is packing them even now.' "'How are they to go?' "'In a chair, as if it were a guest returning from the dancing.' "'How many are to go with it?' "'To escape attention, only the two chairmen, and an officer of the household inside, and another disguised as a link-boy, but all of them well armed.' "'What route are they to take?' "'Along the Strada di Chiaja and by S. Caterina.' "'Good,' he said. 'You are sure that there are only four of them? I shall have twenty in case of accident. We can assemble by twos and threes, and none of them must get away alive.' "'Can you find as many whom you could trust?' "'I shall not trust them except to murder. Anybody can be trusted to murder. Only my brother, Don Pancrazio, and I will know. I should not trust him, if I could do it alone. You are sure that they will make as much as that? Perhaps I could do without Pancrazio.' "'No; it will take two to remove them.' "'Even with a mule?' "'Yes, I am sure. The mule must have panniers.' "'Pancrazio will lead it. I shall lead the men. We will hide by the steps of the Ponte di Chiaja. There is a guard stationed there whom I can bribe to let himself be drugged.' "'But how will you get rid of them?'