“Look you, Gino—­thy master sometimes calls for his gondola between sunset and morning?”

“An owl is not more wakeful than he has been of late.  This head of mine has not been on a pillow before the sun has come above the Lido, since the snows melted from Monselice.”

“And when the sun of thy master’s countenance sets in his own palazzo, thou hastenest off to the bridge of the Rialto, among the jewellers and butchers, to proclaim the manner in which he passed the night?”

“Diamine!  ‘Twould be the last night I served the Duca di Sant’ Agata, were my tongue so limber!  The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference—­that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes knows more.  I can find a safer, if not a more honest employment, than to be running about with my master’s secrets in the air.”

“And I am wiser than to let every Jew broker in San Marco, here, have a peep into my charter-party.”

“Nay, old acquaintance, there is some difference between our occupations, after all.  A padrone of a felucca cannot, in justice, be compared to the most confidential gondolier of a Neapolitan duke, who has an unsettled right to be admitted to the Council of Three Hundred.”

“Just the difference between smooth water and rough—­you ruffle the surface of a canal with a lazy oar, while I run the channel of Piombino in a mistral, shoot the Faro of Messina in a white squall, double Santa Maria di Leuca in a breathing Levanter, and come skimming up the Adriatic before a sirocco that is hot enough to cook my maccaroni, and which sets the whole sea boiling worse than the caldrons of Scylla.”

“Hist!” eagerly interrupted the gondolier, who had indulged, with Italian humor, in the controversy for preeminence, though without any real feeling, “here comes one who may think, else, we shall have need of his hand to settle the dispute—­Eccolo!”

The Calabrian recoiled apace, in silence, and stood regarding the individual who had caused this hurried remark, with a gloomy but steady air.  The stranger moved slowly past.  His years were under thirty, though the calm gravity of his countenance imparted to it a character of more mature age.  The cheeks were bloodless, but they betrayed rather the pallid hue of mental than of bodily disease.  The perfect condition of the physical man was sufficiently exhibited in the muscular fulness of a body which, though light and active, gave every indication of strength.  His step was firm, assured, and even; his carriage erect and easy, and his whole mien was strongly characterized by a self-possession that could scarcely escape observation; and yet his attire was that of an inferior class.  A doublet of common velvet, a dark Montero cap, such as was then much used in the southern countries of Europe, with other vestments of a similar fashion, composed his dress.  The face was melancholy rather than sombre, and its perfect repose accorded well with the striking calmness of the body.  The lineaments of the former, however, were bold and even noble, exhibiting that strong and manly outline which is so characteristic of the finer class of the Italian countenance.  Out of this striking array of features gleamed an eye that was full of brilliancy, meaning, and passion.