Using cufons in jquery content sliders

I tried integrating cufon with a content slider excerpt like so:

<span>&lt;?php the_excerpt('<h?&gt;', ''); ?&gt;</span>

but nothing happens. Then I tried something like this…

<h1> <?php the_excerpt(); ?> </h1> and the excerpt doesn’t appear. Same thing when I “cufonize” the span like the h1 tag.

Has anyone tried this before?

I can do this but i will charge for it. And it’s $10/ hour.

I’ve done like this before.