noon on Sunday
` Your health , ' said Gambardella , bowing politely , and then sipping his wine with all the caution required to keep his long nose out of it . Having settled matters in this way and , moreover , satisfied his appetite with a good supper , Pignaver took leave of the Bravi with considerable ceremony , for he perceived that they were as exigent and punctilious as to all points of courtesy as any noble in Italy , France , or Spain ; and it would not be good to fall out with such touchy gentlemen on a point of manners . Indeed , as he retraced his steps to the office of the Signors of the Night , where his gondola was waiting , he really congratulated himself on having escaped without a quarrel , and hoped that the next interview would pass off as well . The three days went by , and at noon on Sunday he received a note from the Signor of the Night informing him that the runaway pair and the serving-woman had been in Padua early on the morning after they left Venice , and had immediately taken an extra post to Rovigo and Ferrara . They had excited no suspicion , and the spy who had brought the news had not obtained the information without considerable difficulty , for many travellers were going and coming , and in a time of peace like the present more attention was bestowed by the authorities on foreign travellers than on Italians . But Stradella had brought some of his belongings with him , which his man had carefully concealed in the gondola , and amongst other things there was his favourite long lute ; the instrument had been noticed by the ostlers at the postern-house in Padua on account of its unusual size , and they remembered the four travellers after hearing the spy 's description of three of them , for he knew nothing of Stradella 's servant . There was therefore no doubt but that the fugitives were now far beyond the Venetian border in the States of the Church , and Pignaver resolved to keep the appointment at the Frari , taking with him the hundred gold ducats which were to be paid in advance .