The opening of the passage known as the Canal of Lombardy was first visited.  To gain this, they had to retrace their steps for some distance, and to row through the town of Chioggia, passing several boats and galleys, but without attracting notice.  They found the mouth of the canal entirely unguarded, and then returned and rowed out to the mouth of the Brondolo passage.  Some blazing fires on the shore showed that there were parties of soldiers here, but no ships were lying anywhere in the channel.

After some consultation they determined that, as no watch seemed to be kept, it would be shorter to row on outside the islands, and to enter by the third passage to be examined, that between Pelestrina and Brondolo.  Here, however, the Genoese were more on the alert, as the Pelestrina shore was held by the Venetians.  Scarcely had they entered the channel, when a large rowboat shot out from the shadow of the shore and hailed them.

“Stop rowing in that boat!  Who are you that are entering so late?”

“Fishermen,” Philippo shouted back, but without stopping rowing.

“Stop!” shouted the officer, “till we examine you!  It is forbidden to enter the channel after dark.”

But the gondoliers rowed steadily on, until ahead of the boat coming out.  This fell into their wake, and its angry officer shouted threats against the fugitives, and exhorted his men to row their hardest.

“There are two more boats ahead, signor.  They are lying on their oars to cut us off.  One is a good deal further out than the other, and I don’t think we shall gain Pelestrina.”

“Then make for the Brondolo shore till we have passed them,” Francis said.

The boat whirled off her course, and made towards the shore.  The Genoese galleys ahead at once made towards them; but in spite of the numerous oars they pulled, the craft could not keep up with the racing gondola, and it crossed ahead of them.  In another five minutes’ rowing, the three galleys were well astern, and the gondola again made out from the shore, her head pointing obliquely towards Pelestrina.  The galleys were now fifty yards behind, and although their crews rowed their hardest, the gondola gradually gained upon them, and crossing their bows made over towards Pelestrina.

“We are out of the channel now,” Philippo said, “and there will not be water enough for them to follow us much further.”

A minute or two later a sudden shout proclaimed that the nearest of their pursuers had touched the ground.

“We can take it easy now,” Giuseppi said, “and I am not sorry, for we could not have rowed harder if we had been racing.”

A few minutes later, the light craft touched the mud a few yards distant from the shore.

“Is that you, Francisco?” a voice, which Francis recognized as Matteo’s, asked.

“All right, Matteo!” he replied.  “No one hurt this time.”

“I have been on the lookout for you the last hour.  I have got a body of my men here, in case you were chased.  We heard the shouting and guessed it was you.”