"I do," I said, and the memory of a bag of florins which accompanied this same Luigi on his disappearance one fine day came to my mind. I had not however seen the man for three years, but he was apparently of those who do not forget faces. As it turned out, however, he had seen me very recently without my knowing it. "It is a pleasure to think I am not forgotten, and in a way, Excellency, you have paid your footing." The rascal was alluding to my stolen florins. "To think," he continued, "that you should have joined us! But I suppose it was the dice, and, to be sure, the rubies were worth ten thousand. You should have realised at once and vanished; but experience will come, and mayhap another chance. I saw the trial, Excellency, and we do not war with the profession, least of all with a new recruit. You are free to pass, or, if you prefer it, to accept our hospitality for a while." I declined the proffered invitation with a brief thanks, and went on, my blood boiling at the impertinence of the scoundrel who so familiarly claimed me as one of his own kind. Innocent myself, I was tasting to the dregs all the humiliation of the guilty, and it was only perhaps a lucky chance that saved me from the rope, or the still worse fate of the galleys at Pisa. Turn which way I would, my own country would never be a country for me again. I was cut out from my order, my infamy would be known wherever my name was heard, and my associates would henceforth have to be the vilest of mankind. Had I committed a murder, or even an act of treachery in war, that could have been wiped out; but to have sunk to the condition of a common thief, this was ignominy beyond repair. I therefore resolved, as soon as I pushed matters to a conclusion with D'Entrangues, that I should leave Italy and seek a new life in the strange countries beyond the seas which Messer Columbus, the navigator, had discovered, and there, my past being unknown, perhaps find a future of peace or the rest which fears no disturbing from this world. My original idea had been to seek the dominions of the Turk, but they were too close to my shame; even the New World was hardly far enough. So I planned, and so doubtless would I have acted had not circumstances worked to give me back what I lost, as I thought hopelessly, and to bring home to my mind the certainty of that tender mercy of God, of which we on earth take too little account. It was late in the evening before I halted and ate my dinner under an overhanging rock, sheltered from the north wind by a clump of pines. When I finished I rolled myself up in my cloak, and fatigue, together with a good conscience, combined to send me to a sleep as sound as it was refreshing. I was up before the sun and continued my way, determined to reach Florence by evening. I took no particular notice of the view, where I could see to my right the Prato Magno, and to my left all the valley of the Greve; but kept my eyes before me, intent on my thoughts.