Presently Francis heard the dip of oars, and a gondola ran up on the sands halfway between himself and the man he was following.  He threw himself down on the ground.  Two men alighted, and went in the same direction as the one who had gone ahead.

Francis made a detour, so as to avoid being noticed by the gondoliers, and then again followed.  After keeping more than a quarter of a mile near the water, the two figures ahead struck inshore.  Francis followed them, and in a few minutes they stopped at a black mass, rising above the sand.  He heard them knock, and then a low murmur, as if they were answering some question from within.  Then they entered, and a door closed.

He moved up to the building.  It was a hut of some size, but had a deserted appearance.  It stood between two ridges of low sand hills, and the sand had drifted till it was halfway up the walls.  There was no garden or inclosure round it, and any passerby would have concluded that it was uninhabited.  The shutters were closed, and no gleam of light showed from within.

After stepping carefully round it, Francis took his post round the angle close to the door, and waited.  Presently he heard footsteps approaching—­three knocks were given on the door, and a voice within asked, “Who is there?”

The reply was, “One who is in distress.”

The question came, “What ails you?”

And the answer, “All is wrong within.”

Then there was a sound of bars being withdrawn, and the door opened and closed again.

There were four other arrivals.  The same questions were asked and answered each time.  Then some minutes elapsed without any fresh comers, and Francis thought that the number was probably complete.  He lay down on the sand, and with his dagger began to make a hole through the wood, which was old and rotten, and gave him no difficulty in piercing it.

He applied his eye to the orifice, and saw that there were some twelve men seated round a table.  Of those facing him he knew three or four by sight; all were men of good family.  Two of them belonged to the council, but not to the inner Council of Ten.  One, sitting at the top of the table, was speaking; but although Francis applied his ear to the hole he had made, he could hear but a confused murmur, and could not catch the words.  He now rose cautiously, scooped up the sand so as to cover the hole in the wall, and swept a little down over the spot where he had been lying, although he had no doubt that the breeze, which would spring up before morning, would soon drift the light shifting sand over it, and obliterate the mark of his recumbent figure.  Then he went round to the other side of the hut and bored another hole, so as to obtain a view of the faces of those whose backs had before been towards him.

One of these was Ruggiero Mocenigo.  Another was a stranger to Francis, and some difference in the fashion of his garments indicated that he was not a Venetian, but, Francis thought, a Hungarian.  The other three were not nobles.  One of them Francis recognized, as being a man of much influence among the fishermen and sailors.  The other two were unknown to him.