Before the gondola, which sprang at each united effort of its crew, like some bounding animal, entered among the shipping, its master had time to recover his self-possession, and to form some hasty plans for the future.  Making a signal for the crew to cease rowing, he came from beneath the canopy.  Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, boats were plying on the water within the town, and the song was still audible on the canals.  But among the mariners a general stillness prevailed, such as befitted their toil during the day, and their ordinary habits.

“Call the first idle gondolier of thy acquaintance hither, Gino,” said Don Camillo, with assumed calmness; “I would question him.”

In less than a minute he was gratified.

“Hast seen any strongly manned gondola plying, of late, in this part of the canal?” demanded Don Camillo, of the man they had stopped.

“None, but this of your own, Signore; which is the fastest of all that passed beneath the Rialto in this day’s regatta.”

“How knowest thou, friend, aught of the speed of my boat?”

“Signore, I have pulled an oar on the canals of Venice six-and-twenty years, and I do not remember to have seen a gondola move more swiftly on them than did this very boat but a few minutes ago, when it dashed among the feluccas, further down in the port, as if it were again running for the oar.  Corpo di Bacco!  There are rich wines in the palaces of the nobles, that men can give such life to wood!”

“Whither did we steer?” eagerly asked Don Camillo.

“Blessed San Teodoro!  I do not wonder, eccellenza, that you ask that question, for though it is but a moment since, here I see you lying as motionless on the water as a floating weed!”

“Friend, here is silver—­addio.”

The gondolier swept slowly onwards, singing a strain in honor of his bark, while the boat of Don Camillo darted ahead.  Mystic, felucca, xebec, brigantine, and three-masted ship, were apparently floating past them, as they shot through the maze of shipping, when Gino bent forward and drew the attention of his master to a large gondola, which was pulling with a lazy oar towards them, from the direction of the Lido.  Both boats were in a wide avenue in the midst of the vessels, the usual track of those who went to sea, and there was no object whatever between them.  By changing the course of his own boat, Don Camillo soon found himself within an oar’s length of the other.  He saw, at a glance, it was the treacherous gondola by which he had been duped.

“Draw, men, and follow!” shouted the desperate Neapolitan, preparing to leap into the midst of his enemies.

“You draw against St. Mark!” cried a warning voice from beneath the canopy.  “The chances are unequal, Signore; for the smallest signal would bring twenty galleys to our succor.”

Don Camillo might have disregarded this menace, had he not perceived that it caused the half-drawn rapiers of his followers to return to their scabbards.