I was so imprudent as to obey him, without the slightest suspicion of his design upon me; for had I in the least guessed at it I should soon have forced my way through his servants, and disappointed him of the punishment he had devised for me. Having arrived at his house, I did not presage much good when he looked at me with earnestness, and then demanded of me in a severe tone if I was not the same person whom he had seen a few days since at a church door with a bad head. I turned pale at this question, and could not muster impudence enough to answer in the negative, whereupon he insisted on seeing my head, and not perceiving the least appearance of disorder: “Tell me,” said he, “by what singular remedy you can possibly have cured yourself so perfectly in the short space of four days, and how you can have so inveterate an ulcer on your leg accompanied with so ruddy a complexion:” “Sir,” replied I; so disconcerted that I knew not what I said,--“I know not: but God was pleased that it should be so.”
I was still more troubled when I heard him desire one of his servants to run for a surgeon. I knew well what was preparing for me, and should soon have made an attempt to escape, if I had not observed that the door was locked; but as such was the case I was obliged to submit. At length the surgeon arrived, and examined my leg most attentively, and, skilful as he was, would very probably have been deceived, had not the governor communicated to him in a whisper the reasons he had for thinking me an impostor; after this the surgeon had but little trouble in discovering the truth: he examined the ulcer afresh, and then declared, with an air of importance and sagacity, that I had no more ailment in my leg than he himself had in his eye: “Bring me some hot water,” said he, “and I will prove clearly what I assert.” This was soon supplied; the surgeon rubbed and washed my leg, which became in an instant so clean and healthful, that I dared not utter a syllable in defence of my knavery.
The governor, thinking that he was bound to reward me for my address, gave me the shirt he had been so kind as to promise, which was fitted on my back in a moment by one of his lusty servants, who applied thirty hearty lashes by his master’s directions, by way of recompence for my journey. After which I was ordered to leave the town immediately, with the promise that I should be doubly remunerated if I ever ventured to make my appearance in it again. This was a very superfluous prohibition, for the pleasant treatment I had met with in Gaeta was of itself quite sufficient to divest me of all desire of visiting that place again. I left this cursed town therefore without further delay, shrugging up my shoulders all the way I went, until I arrived once more in the Pope’s territories. I greeted my dear Rome with a thousand blessings as I entered it, and no sooner saw it at a distance than tears of joy trickled from my eyes, and I could not refrain from wishing my arms long enough to have embraced it.