I remained there two days and two nights, without a mouthful of food, afraid to venture forth into the midst of my enemies. There were so many people and so much going and coming in that house that one could not take a step without meeting some one. Through the little round windows in the garret I heard the remarks of the servants in the corridors of the floor below. They talked about me almost continuously, indulged in a thousand conjectures concerning my disappearance, and promised to give me a sound thrashing if they succeeded in catching me. I also heard my master on his gondola expressing surprise at my absence, and exulting at the thought of my return, with no less kindly designs. I was brave and strong; but I realized that I should be overborne by numbers. The prospect of being beaten by my master troubled me but little; that was one of the hazards of being an apprentice, which involved no disgrace. But the idea of being chastised by servants was so horrifying to me that I preferred to die of hunger. And my adventure came very near ending in that way. At fifteen years one does not readily endure starvation diet. An old lady's-maid, who came to the garret in search of a runaway pigeon, found instead of her fugitive the poor _barcarolino_, unconscious and almost dead, at the foot of an old canvas representing a Saint Cecilia. The point that impressed me most profoundly in my distress was that the saint had in her arms a harp of antique shape, which I had abundance of leisure to contemplate amid the torments of hunger, and the sight of which became so hateful to me that for a long time thereafter I could not endure the sight or sound of that fatal instrument.