“‘If I lock that door,’ I said, pointing to the one which she had entered, ‘no one can approach without passing through the room of my watchdog, Tom Allen. And Tom makes a noise like a bull when he moves, and can be trusted like the grave.’
“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.’