“This assurance is not wanting, since thou art the borrower, thyself, to lend to me.”

“Signore, you place my conscience in an awkward position.  You are now my debtor some six thousand sequins, and were I to make this loan of money in trust, and were you to return it—­two propositions I make on supposition—­a natural love for my own might cause me to pass the payment to account, whereby I should put the assets of Levi in jeopardy.”

“Settle that as thou wilt with thy conscience, Hosea—­thou hast confessed to the money, and here are jewels for the pledge—­I ask only the sequins.”

It is probable that the appeal of Giacomo Gradenigo would not have produced much effect on the flinty nature of the Hebrew, who had all the failings of a man proscribed by opinion; but having recovered from his surprise, he began to explain to his companion his apprehensions on account of Donna Violetta, whose marriage, it will be remembered, was a secret to all but the witnesses and the Council of Three, when to his great joy he found that the gold was wanting to advance his own design of removing her to some secret place.  This immediately changed the whole face of the bargain.  As the pledges offered were really worth the sum to be received, Hosea thought, taking the chances of recovering back his ancient loans, from the foreign estates of the heiress, into the account, the loan would be no bad investment of the pretended sequins of his friend Levi.

As soon as the parties had come to a clear understanding, they left the square together, to consummate their bargain.

CHAPTER XXI.

“We’ll follow Cade, we’ll follow Cade.” 
Henry VI.

The night wore on.  The strains of music again began to break through the ordinary stillness of the town, and the boats of the great were once more in motion on every canal.  Hands waved timidly in recognition, from the windows of the little dark canopies, as the gondolas glided by, but few paused to greet each other in that city of mystery and suspicion.  Even the refreshing air of the evening was inhaled under an appearance of restraint, which, though it might not be at the moment felt, was too much interwoven with the habits of the people, ever to be entirely thrown aside.

Among the lighter and gayer barges of the patricians, a gondola of more than usual size, but of an exterior so plain as to denote vulgar uses, came sweeping down the great canal.  Its movement was leisurely, and the action of the gondoliers that of men either fatigued or little pressed for time.  He who steered, guided the boat with consummate skill, but with a single hand, while his three fellows, from time to time, suffered their oars to trail on the water in very idleness.  In short, it had the ordinary listless appearance of a boat returning to the city from an excursion on the Brenta, or to some of the more distant isles.