“He is better employed than those who set the duty.  Were the choice given me, girl, to wear the horned bonnet, to feast in their halls, to rest in their palaces, to be the gayest bauble in such a pageant as that of yesterday, to plot in their secret councils, and to be the heartless judge to condemn my fellows to this misery—­or to be merely the keeper of the keys and turner of the bolts—­I should seize on the latter office, as not only the most innocent, but by far the most honorable!”

“Thou dost not judge as the world judges, Carlo.  I had feared thou might’st feel shame at being the husband of a jailor’s daughter; nay, I will not hide the secret longer, since thou speakest so calmly, I have wept that it should be so.”

“Then thou hast neither understood the world nor me.  Were thy father of the Senate, or of the Council of Three, could the grievous fact be known, thou would’st have cause to sorrow.  But, Gelsomina, the canals are getting dusky, and I must leave thee.”

The reluctant girl saw the truth of what he said, and applying a key, she opened the door of the covered bridge.  A few turnings and a short descent brought the Bravo and his companion to the level of the quays.  Here the former took a hurried leave and quitted the prison.

CHAPTER XX.

  “But they who blunder thus are raw beginners.” 
                              Don Juan.

The hour had come for the revels of the Piazza, and for the movement of the gondolas.  Maskers glided along the porticoes as usual; the song and cry were heard anew, and Venice was again absorbed in delusive gaiety.

When Jacopo issued from the prison on the quay, he mingled with the stream of human beings that was setting towards the squares, protected from observation by the privileged mask.  While crossing the lower bridge of the canal of St. Mark, he lingered an instant, to throw a look at the glazed gallery he had just quitted, and then moved forward with the crowd—­the image of the artless and confiding Gelsomina uppermost in his thoughts.  As he passed slowly along the gloomy arches of the Broglio, his eye sought the person of Don Camillo Monforte.  They met at the angle of the little square, and exchanging secret signs, the Bravo moved on unnoticed.

Hundreds of boats lay at the foot of the Piazzetta.  Among these Jacopo sought his own gondola, which he extricated from the floating mass, and urged into the stream.  A few sweeps of the oar, and he lay at the side of La Bella Sorrentina.  The padrone paced the deck, enjoying the cool of the evening with Italian indolence, while his people, grouped on the forecastle, sang, or rather chanted, a song of those seas.  The greetings were blunt and brief, as is usual among men of that class.  But the padrone appeared to expect the visit, for he led his guest far from the ears of his crew, to the other extremity of the felucca.