"This talk, and the thoughts of my misfortune, which now seemed to have reached its climax, so overcame me that I fell down in a swoon, and lay as if dead. I have been told that it was four hours before I came to myself, during which time they had done everything in their power to restore me to my senses, and what I should most have felt, if I had been conscious, was, that they must have discovered I was no man, but a woman. I recovered at last, and the first thing I saw was the face of my brother and of my husband, the latter held me in his arms. I do not know how it was that I did not die that moment; I do not know how it was that my tongue did not cleave to the roof of my mouth; all I know is, that I knew not what they said to me; but, I heard my brother say, 'What means this dress, my sister?' and my husband said, 'What is this disguise, my soul? If I did not know so well your virtue and honour, my sweet wife, this dress should be exchanged only for a shroud.' 'Your wife?' said my brother, 'this seems as strange a story to me as it is to find her thus disguised; but if it be true, it would be a sufficient recompense for the trouble it causes me to see her thus.' "At this instant I had begun to recover my scattered senses, and I remember that I said, 'Dear brother, I am Ambrosia Agustina, thy sister, I am also the wife of Señor Contarino de Arbolanchez; Love, and thy absence, O my brother, gave him to me as a husband; but, on the wedding day he left me, and I, rash, desperate, and inconsiderate, set off to seek him in this disguise.' Then I told them all the story I have already narrated, and I had the good fortune (for now my fortune was beginning to amend) to find that they believed me, and pitied me. I then heard that my husband had been taken prisoner with one of the two vessels in which he had sailed for Genoa, and that it was only two days ago that he had recovered his liberty, and had had no time or opportunity to see my brother till the moment of my fainting. Events so strange are hardly credible, yet it is all as I have said. In these galleys the lady whom you saw with me was going to Italy with her two nieces; her son has the charge of the royal patrimony in Sicily; they supplied me with the dress I now wear, and my husband and brother sent us on shore to refresh and amuse ourselves, and see the friends that they have in this city. If you are going to Rome, I will make my brother convey you to the nearest seaport. The case of cordials I would fain repay with the best I possess; and if I should not myself go to Italy, I would ask my brother to take my debt upon him. This, my friends, is my history; if you should find it hard to believe I cannot wonder; but there is a common saying that it is courtesy to believe, and, in yours, which must be great, I place my credit."