“I can find no signs of them, Giuseppi.”

“All the better, Messer Francisco.  There are some sorts of game, which it is well for the safety of the hunter not to discover.  I was very glad, I can tell you, when I heard your whistle, and made out your figure returning at a walk.  Now you are back I will take an hour’s nap, and I should advise you to do the same.”

But Francis had no thought of sleep, and sat down at his end of the gondola, wondering over the adventure, and considering whether or not it would be worth while to follow it up another night.  That it was a plot of some sort he had little doubt.  There were always in Venice two parties, equally anxious perhaps for the prosperity of the republic, but differing widely as to the means by which that prosperity would be best achieved, and as to the alliances which would, in the long run, prove most beneficial to her.  There were also needy and desperate men ready enough to take bribes from any who might offer them, and to intrigue in the interest of Padua or Ferrara, Verona, Milan, or Genoa—­whichever might for the time be their paymasters.

Francis was English, but he had been long enough in Venice to feel a pride in the island city, and to be almost as keenly interested in her fortunes as were his companions and friends; and a certain sense of duty, mingled with his natural love of adventure, decided him to follow up the chance which had befallen him, and to endeavour to ascertain the nature of the plot which was, he had little doubt, being hatched at San Nicolo.

In a very few minutes the regular breathing of Giuseppi, who had curled himself up in the bottom of the boat, showed that he had gone to sleep; and he did not stir until, an hour and a half after the return of Francis, the latter heard the fall of footsteps approaching the gondola.

“Wake up, Giuseppi, here comes our fare!”

Francis stood up and stretched himself as the stranger came alongside, as if he too had been fast asleep.

“Take me back to the spot where I hailed you,” the fare said briefly, as he stepped into the boat and threw himself back on the cushions, and without a word the lads dipped their oars in the water and the gondola glided away towards Venice.

Just as they reached the mouth of the Grand Canal, and were about to turn into it, a six-oared gondola shot out from under the point, and a voice called out: 

“Stop, in the name of the republic, and give an account of yourselves!”

“Row on,” the passenger exclaimed, starting up.  “Ten ducats if you can set me safely on shore.”

Had the lads been real gondoliers, it is probable that even this tempting offer would not have induced them to disregard the order from the galley, for they would have run no slight risk in so doing.  But Francis had no desire to be caught, and perhaps imprisoned for a considerable time, until he was able to convince the council that his share of the night’s work had been merely the result of a boyish freak.  With two strokes of his oar, therefore, he swept the boat’s head round, thereby throwing their pursuers directly astern of them; then he and Giuseppi threw their whole weight into the stroke, and the boat danced over the water at a pace very different to that at which it had hitherto proceeded.