The dark eye of the Bravo was seen rolling over the person of his companion, by the light of the moon, in a manner that caused the blood of the latter to steal towards his heart.

“I bid thee read to me aloud the name the paper bears,” said Jacopo, sternly.  “Here is none but the lion and the saint above our heads to listen.”

“Just San Marco! who can tell what ear is open or what ear is shut in Venice?  If you please, Signor Frontoni, we will postpone the examination to a more suitable occasion.”

“Friend, I do not play the fool!  The name, or show me some gage that thou art sent by him thou hast named, else take back the packet; ’tis no affair for my hand.”

“Reflect a single moment on the consequences, Signor Jacopo, before you come to a determination so hasty.”

“I know no consequences which can befall a man who refuses to receive a message like this.”

“Per Diana!  Signore, the Duca will not be likely to leave me an ear to hear the good advice of Father Battista.”

“Then will the Duca save the public executioner some trouble.”

As he spoke, the Bravo cast the packet at the feet of the gondolier, and began to walk calmly up the piazzetta.  Gino seized the letter, and, with his brain in a whirl, with the effort to recall some one of his master’s acquaintances to whom he would be likely to address an epistle on such an occasion, he followed.

“I wonder, Signor Jacopo, that a man of your sagacity has not remembered that a packet to be delivered to himself should bear his own name.”

The Bravo took the paper, and held the superscription again to the light.

“That is not so.  Though unlearned, necessity has taught me to know when I am meant.”

“Diamine!  That is just my own case, Signore.  Were the letter for me, now the old should not know its young quicker than I would come at the truth.”

“Then thou canst not read?”

“I never pretended to the art.  The little said was merely about writing.  Learning, as you well understand, Master Jacopo, is divided into reading, writing, and figures; and a man may well understand one, without knowing a word of the others.  It is not absolutely necessary to be a bishop to have a shaved head, or a Jew to wear a beard.”

“Thou would’st have done better to have said this at once; go, I will think of the matter.”

Gino gladly turned away, but he had not left the other many paces before he saw a female form gliding behind the pedestal of one of the granite columns.  Moving swiftly in a direction to uncover this seeming spy, he saw at once that Annina had been a witness of his interview with the Bravo.

CHAPTER IV.

     “’T will make me think

The world is full of rubs, and that my fortune
Runs ’gainst the bias.” 

                                          Richard the second.