“Place,” cried the Duke of Sant’ Agata, whose person and voice were alike unknown to them.  “Your mistress will breathe the air of the canals.”

Wonder and curiosity were alive in every countenance, but suspicion and eager attention were uppermost in the features of many.  The foot of Donna Violetta had scarcely touched the pavement of the lower hall, when several menials glided down the flight and quitted the palace by its different outlets.  Each sought those who engaged him in the service.  One flew along the narrow streets of the islands, to the residence of the Signor Gradenigo; another sought his son; and one, ignorant of the person of him he served, actually searched an agent of Don Camillo, to impart a circumstance in which that noble was himself so conspicuous an actor.  To such a pass of corruption had double-dealing and mystery reduced the household of the fairest and richest in Venice!  The gondola lay at the marble steps of the water gate, held against the stones by two of its crew.  Don Camillo saw at a glance that the masked gondoliers had neglected none of the precautions he had prescribed, and he inwardly commended their punctuality.  Each wore a short rapier at his girdle, and he fancied he could trace beneath the folds of their garments evidence of the presence of the clumsy fire-arms in use at that period.  These observations were made while the Carmelite and Violetta entered the boat.  Donna Florinda followed, and Annina was about to imitate her example, when she was arrested by the arm of Don Camillo.

“Thy service ends here,” whispered the bridegroom.  “Seek another mistress; in fault of a better, thou mayest devote thyself to Venice.”

The little interruption caused Don Camillo to look backwards, and for a single moment he paused to scrutinize the group of eyes that crowded the hall of the palace, at a respectful distance.

“Adieu, my friends!” he added.  “Those among ye who love your mistress shall be remembered.”

He would have said more, but a rude seizure of his arms caused him to turn hastily away.  He was firm in the grasp of the two gondoliers who had landed.  While he was yet in too much astonishment to struggle, Annina, obedient to a signal, darted past him and leaped into the boat.  The oars fell into the water; Don Camillo was repelled by a violent shove backwards into the hall, the gondoliers stepped lightly into their places, and the gondola swept away from the steps, beyond the power of him they left to follow.

“Gino!—­miscreant!—­what means this treachery?”

The moving of the parting gondola was accompanied by no other sound than the usual washing of the water.  In speechless agony Don Camillo saw the boat glide, swifter and swifter at each stroke of the oars, along the canal, and then whirling round the angle of a palace, disappear.