Had it not been for that most untoward circumstance I almost believe that while I waited for the sun to set on that December afternoon, my mood had not only been calm but even in some measure joyous, for it must have comforted my last moments to reflect that for all that Messer Ramiro was about to hang me, yet had I sown the seeds of his own destruction ere he had brought me to this pass.
I did, indeed, reflect upon it, and it may even be that, in spite of all, I culled some grain of comfort from the reflection.

But let that be.

My narrative would drag wearily were I to digress that I might tell you at length the ugly course of my thoughts whilst the sands of my last hour were running swiftly out.

For, after all, my concern and yours is with the story of Lazzaro Biancomonte, sometime known as Boccadoro the Fool, and not with his philosophies--philosophies so unprofitable that it can benefit no man that I should set them down.
My windows faced west, and so I was able to watch the fall of the sun, and measure by its shortening distance from the horizon the ebbing of my poor life.

At last the nether rim of that round, fiery orb was on the point of touching the line of distant hills, and it was casting a crimson glow along the white, snow-sheeted landscape that was singularly suggestive of a tide of blood--a very fitting tide to flow and ebb about the walls of the Castle of Cesena.
One little thing there was might save me, Ramiro had said.