The noose was around my neck."
He stopped, as if he had told everything.
"Go on!" said Arisa. "How did you escape? What an adventure!"
"One of my men saved me. He had a little learning, and could pass for a
monk when he could get a cowl. He went out before it was daylight that
morning, and exchanged clothes with a burly friar whom he met in a quiet
place."
"But how did the friar agree to that?" asked Arisa in surprise.
"He had nothing to say. He was dead," answered Aristarchi.
"Do you mean to say that he chanced to find a dead friar lying in the
road?" asked the Georgian.
"How should I know? I daresay the monk was alive when he met my man, and
happened to die a few minutes afterwards--by mere chance. It was very
fortunate, was it not?"
"Yes!" Arisa laughed softly. "But what did he do? Why did he take the
trouble to dress the monk in his clothes?"
"In order to receive his dying confession, of course. I thought you
would understand! And his dying confession was that he, Michael Pandos,
a Greek robber, had killed the man for whose murder I was being hanged
that morning. My man came just in time, for as the friar's head was half
shaved, as monks' heads are, he had to shave the rest, as they do for
coolness in the south, and he had only his knife with which to do it.
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