Above was the firmament, gemmed with worlds, and sublime in immensity.  Beneath lay the broad expanse of the Adriatic, endless to the eye, tranquil as the vault it reflected, and luminous with its borrowed light.  Here and there a low island, reclaimed from the sea by the patient toil of a thousand years, dotted the Lagunes, burdened with the group of some conventual dwellings, or picturesque with the modest roofs of a hamlet of the fisherman.  Neither oar, nor song, nor laugh, nor flap of sail, nor jest of mariner, disturbed the stillness.  All in the near view was clothed in midnight loveliness, and all in the distance bespoke the solemnity of nature at peace.  The city and the Lagunes, the gulf and the dreamy Alps, the interminable plain of Lombardy, and the blue void of heaven, lay alike in a common and grand repose.

There suddenly appeared a gondola.  It issued from among the watery channels of the town, and glided upon the vast bosom of the bay, noiseless as the fancied progress of a spirit.  A practised and nervous arm guided its movement, which was unceasing and rapid.  So swift indeed was the passage of the boat, as to denote pressing haste on the part of the solitary individual it contained.  It held the direction of the Adriatic, steering between one of the more southern outlets of the bay and the well known island of St. Giorgio.  For half an hour the exertions of the gondolier were unrelaxed, though his eye was often cast behind him, as if he distrusted pursuit; and as often did he gaze ahead, betraying an anxious desire to reach some object that was yet invisible.  When a wide reach of water lay between him and the town, however, he permitted his oar to rest, and he lent all his faculties to a keen and anxious search.

A small dark spot was discovered on the water still nearer to the sea.  The oar of the gondolier dashed the element behind him, and his boat again glided away, so far altering its course as to show that all indecision was now ended.  The darker spot was shortly beheld quivering in the rays of the moon, and it soon assumed the form and dimensions of a boat at anchor.  Again the gondolier ceased his efforts, and he leaned forward, gazing intently at this undefined object, as if he would aid his powers of sight by the sympathy of his other faculties.  Just then the notes of music came softly across the Lagunes.  The voice was feeble even to trembling, but it had the sweetness of tone and the accuracy of execution which belong so peculiarly to Venice.  It was the solitary man, in the distant boat, indulging in the song of a fisherman.  The strains were sweet, and the intonations plaintive to melancholy.  The air was common to all who plied the oar in the canals, and familiar to the ear of the listener.  He waited until the close of a verse had died away, and then he answered with a strain of his own.  The alternate parts were thus maintained until the music ceased, by the two singing a final verse in chorus.