“Blessed St. Theodore!  Signore, the agents of the Republic had little need of me, and I was put on the first bridge that the gondola passed.”

“Thou strivest to deceive me in vain.  Thou wast on the Lagunes till a late hour in the day, and I have notice of thy having visited the prison of St. Mark as the sun was setting; and this on thy return from the boat of Donna Violetta.”

There was no acting in the wonder of Annina.

“Santissima Maria!  You are better served, Signore, than the council thinks!”

“As thou wilt find to thy cost, unless the truth be spoken.  From what convent did’st thou come?”

“Signore, from none.  If your eccellenza has discovered that the Senate has shut up the Signora Tiepolo in the prison of St. Mark, for safe-keeping, it is no fault of mine.”

“Thy artifice is useless, Annina,” observed Don Camillo, calmly.  “Thou wast in the prison, in quest of forbidden articles that thou hadst long left with thy cousin Gelsomina, the keeper’s daughter, who little suspected thy errand, and on whose innocence and ignorance of the world thou hast long successfully practised.  Donna Violetta is no vulgar prisoner, to be immured in a jail.”

“Santissima Madre di Dio!”

Amazement confined the answer of the girl to this single, but strong exclamation.

“Thou seest the impossibility of deception.  I am acquainted with so much of thy movements as to render it impossible that thou should’st lead me far astray.  Thou art not wont to visit thy cousin; but as thou entered the canals this evening——­”

A shout on the water caused Don Camillo to pause.  On looking out he saw a dense body of boats sweeping towards the town as if they were all impelled by a single set of oars.  A thousand voices were speaking at once, and occasionally a general and doleful cry proclaimed that the floating multitude, which came on, was moved by a common feeling.  The singularity of the spectacle, and the fact that his own gondola lay directly in the route of the fleet, which was composed of several hundred boats, drove the examination of the girl, momentarily, from the thoughts of the noble.

“What have we here, Jacopo?” he demanded, in an under-tone, of the gondolier who steered his own barge.

“They are fishermen, Signore, and by the manner in which they come down towards the canals, I doubt they are bent on some disturbance.  There has been discontent among them since the refusal of the Doge to liberate the boy of their companion from the galleys.”

Curiosity induced the people of Don Camillo to linger a minute, and then they perceived the necessity of pulling out of the course of the floating mass, which came on like a torrent, the men sweeping their boats with that desperate stroke which is so often seen among the Italian oarsmen.  A menacing hail, with a command to remain, admonished Don Camillo of the necessity of downright flight, or of obedience.  He chose the latter, as the least likely to interfere with his own plans.