Better that it should have been burnt than that someone should have read it whilst I slept." The idea of such a possibility seemed to rouse him to fresh action, for seizing the fallen candle and replacing it in its socket, he rose once more, and holding it high above his head he looked about the hall.
The light it shed may have been feeble, and the shadows about my buffet thick; but, as I have said, my doublet was open, and some ray of that weak candlelight must have found out the white shirt that was showing at my breast, for with a sudden cry he pushed back his chair and took a step towards me, no doubt intent upon investigating that white something that he saw gleaming there.
I waited for no more.

I had no fancy to be caught in that corner, utterly at his mercy.

I stood up suddenly.
"Magnificent, it is I," I announced, with a calm and boundless effrontery.
The boldness of it may have staggered him a little, for he paused, although his eyes were glowing horribly with the frenzy that possessed him, the half of which was drunkenness, the other fear and wrath lest I should have seen his treacherous communication from Vitelli.
"What make you here ?" he questioned threateningly.
"I thirsted, Excellency," I answered glibly.

"I thirsted, and I bethought me of this buffet where you keep your wine." He continued to eye me, some six paces off, his half-drunken wits no doubt weighing the plausibility of my answer.

At last-- "If that be all, what cause had you to hide ?" he asked me shrewdly.
"One of your candles fell over and awakened you," said I."I feared you might resent my presence, and so I hid." "You came not near the table ?" he inquired.