For a great while the hermit could not understand what Antonio wanted of him; for his thoughts were on his own state and with the dead; but at length having understood that Antonio would be guided through the passage and brought to the mouth of the cave, in the hope of finding means to escape before the Duke's Commissaries came with the Guard, he murmured wonderingly, "Do you then desire to live?" and rose, and led Antonio where the coffin stood upright against the wall as Antonio had seen it; but it was now moved a little to one side, and there was a narrow opening, through which the Count had much ado to pass; and in his struggles he upset the coffin, and it fell with a great crash; whereat all who were outside the vault fled suddenly to a distance of a hundred yards or more in panic, expecting now to see the door of the vault open and the dead walk forth: nor could they be persuaded to come nearer again. But Antonio, with a great effort, made his way through the opening, and followed the hermit along a narrow rough-hewn way, Antonio's shoulders grazing the rock on either side as he went; and having pursued this way for fifteen or twenty paces, they turned to the right sharply, and went on another ten paces, and, having passed through another narrow opening, were in the cave; and the river glistened before their eyes, for it was now dawn. And the hermit, perceiving that it was dawn, and fearing to see the sun, turned to flee back to the vault; but Antonio, being full of pity for him, detained him, and besought him to abandon his manner of life, assuring him that certainly by now his sin was purged: and when the hermit would not listen, Antonio followed him back to the opening that led into the vault, and, forgetting his own peril, reasoned with him for the space of an hour or more, but could not prevail. So at last he bade him farewell very sorrowfully, telling him that God had made him that day the instrument of saving a man's life, which should be to him a sign of favour and forgiveness; but the hermit shook his head and passed into the vault, and Antonio heard him again talking to the dead Peschetti, and answering questions that his own disordered brain invented.