“Weren’t we, Giulia?”

Giulia nodded.

“Giulia hasn’t much to say when you are here, Francisco, but she can chatter about you fast enough when we are alone.”

“How can you say so, Maria?” Giulia said reproachfully.

“Well, my dear, there is no harm in that.  For aught he knows, you may be saying the most unkind things about him, all the time.”

“I am sure he knows that I should not do that,” Giulia said indignantly.

“By the way, do you know, Francisco, that all Venice is in a state of excitement!  A proclamation has been issued by the doge, this morning, that all should be in their galleys and at their posts at noon, under pain of death.  So everyone knows that something is about to be done, at last.”

“Then it is time for me to be off,” Francis said, rising hastily, “for it is ten o’clock already.”

“Take your time, my lad,” the merchant said.  “There is no hurry, for Pisani told me, privately, that they should not sail until after dark.”

It was not, indeed, until nearly eight o’clock in the evening, that the expedition started.  At the hour of vespers, the doge, Pisani, and the other leaders of the expedition, attended mass in the church of Saint Mark, and then proceeded to their galleys, where all was now in readiness.

Pisani led the first division, which consisted of fourteen galleys.  The doge, assisted by Cavalli, commanded in the centre; and Corbaro brought up the rear, with ten large ships.  The night was beautifully bright and calm, a light and favourable breeze was blowing, and all Venice assembled to see the departure of the fleet.

Just after it passed through the passage of the Lido, a thick mist came on.  Pisani stamped up and down the deck impatiently.

“If this goes on, it will ruin us,” he said.  “Instead of arriving in proper order at the mouth of the passages, and occupying them before the Genoese wake up to a sense of their danger, we shall get there one by one, they will take the alarm, and we shall have their whole fleet to deal with.  It will be simply ruin to our scheme.”

Fortunately, however, the fog speedily lifted.  The vessels closed up together, and, in two hours after starting, arrived off the entrances to the channels.  Pisani anchored until daylight appeared, and nearly five thousand men were then landed on the Brondolo’s shore, easily driving back the small detachment placed there.  But the alarm was soon given, and the Genoese poured out in such overwhelming force that the Venetians were driven in disorder to their boats, leaving behind them six hundred killed, drowned, or prisoners.

But Pisani had not supposed that he would be able to hold his position in front of the whole Genoese force, and he had succeeded in his main object.  While the fighting had been going on on shore, a party of sailors had managed to moor a great ship, laden with stones, across the channel.  As soon as the Genoese had driven the Venetians to their boats, they took possession of this vessel, and, finding that she was aground, they set her on fire, thus unconsciously aiding Pisani’s object, for when she had burned to the water’s edge she sank.