Venice admitted not of pursuit like another city; for there was no passage along the canal taken by the gondola, but by water.  Several of the boats used by the family, lay within the piles on the great canal, at the principal entrance, and Don Camillo was about to rush into one, and to seize its oars with his own hands, when the usual sounds announced the approach of a gondola from the direction of the bridge that had so long served as a place of concealment to his own domestic.  It soon issued from the obscurity cast by the shadows of the houses, and proved to be a large gondola pulled, like the one which had just disappeared, by six masked gondoliers.  The resemblance between the equipments of the two was so exact, that at first not only the wondering Camillo, but all the others present, fancied the latter, by some extraordinary speed, had already made the tour of the adjoining palaces, and was once more approaching the private entrance of that of Donna Violetta.

“Gino!” cried the bewildered bridegroom.

“Signore mio?” answered the faithful domestic.

“Draw nearer, varlet.  What meaneth this idle trifling at a moment like this?”

Don Camillo leaped a fearful distance, and happily he reached the gondola.  To pass the men and rush into the canopy needed but a moment; to perceive that it was empty was the work of a glance.

“Villains, have you dared to be false!” cried the confounded noble.

At that instant the clock of the city began to tell the hour of two, and it was only as that appointed signal sounded heavy and melancholy on the night-air, that the undeceived Camillo got a certain glimpse of the truth.

“Gino,” he said, repressing his voice, like one summoning a desperate resolution—­“are thy fellows true?”

“As faithful as your own vassals, Signore.”

“And thou didst not fail to deliver the note to my agent?”

“He had it before the ink was dry, eccellenza.”

“The mercenary villain!  He told thee where to find the gondola, equipped as I see it?”

“Signore, he did; and I do the man the justice to say that nothing is wanting, either to speed or comfort.”

“Aye, he even deals in duplicates, so tender is his care!” muttered Don Camillo between his teeth.  “Pull away, men; your own safety and my happiness now depend on your arms.  A thousand ducats if you equal my hopes—­my just anger if you disappoint them!”

Don Camillo threw himself on the cushions as he spoke, in bitterness of heart, though he seconded his words by a gesture which bid the men proceed.  Gino, who occupied the stern and managed the directing oar, opened a small window in the canopy which communicated with the interior, and bent to take his master’s directions as the boat sprang ahead.  Rising from his stooping posture, the practised gondolier gave a sweep with his blade, which caused the sluggish element of the narrow canal to whirl in eddies, and then the gondola glided into the great canal, as if it obeyed an instinct.