“Then, as to her not crying out when attacked, women behave differently in cases of danger.  Some scream loudly, others are silent, as if paralysed by fear.  This would seem to have been her case.  Doubtless she instinctively grasped the girls for their protection, and in her fright did not even perceive that a boat had come alongside, or know that you were a friend trying to save them.  That someone informed their assailants of the whereabouts of my daughters, and the time they were coming home, is clear; but they might have been seen going to the house, and a swift gondola have been placed on the watch.  Had this boat started as soon as they took their seat in the gondola on their return, and hastened, by the narrow canals, to the spot where their accomplices were waiting, they could have warned them in ample time of the approach of the gondola with my daughters.

“I have, as you may believe, thought the matter deeply over, for it was evident to me that the news of my daughters’ coming must have reached their assailants beforehand.  I was most unwilling to suspect treachery on the part of any of my household, and came to the conclusion that the warning was given in the way I have suggested.

“At the same time, Francisco, I thank you deeply for having mentioned to me the suspicions you have formed, and although I think that you are wholly mistaken, I certainly shall not neglect the warning, but shall watch very closely the conduct of my daughters’ gouvernante, and shall take every precaution to put it out of her power to play me false, even while I cannot, for a moment, believe she would be so base and treacherous as to attempt to do so.”

“In that case, signor, I shall feel that my mission has not been unsuccessful, however mistaken I may be, and I trust sincerely that I am wholly wrong.  I thank you much for the kind way in which you have heard me express suspicions of a person in your confidence.”

The gravity with which the merchant had heard Francis’ story vanished immediately he left the room, and a smile came over his face.

“Boys are boys all the world over,” he said to himself, “and though my young friend has almost the stature of a man, as well as the quickness and courage of one, and has plenty of sense in other matters, he has at once the prejudices and the romantic ideas of a boy.  Had Signora Castaldi been young and pretty, no idea that she was treacherous would have ever entered his mind; but what young fellow yet ever liked a gouvernante, who sits by and works at her tambour frame, with a disapproving expression on her face, while he is laughing and talking with a girl of his own age.  I should have felt the same when I was a boy.  Still, to picture the poor signora as a traitoress, in the pay of that villain Mocenigo, is too absurd.  I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my gravity when he was unfolding his story.  But he is an excellent lad, nevertheless.  A true, honest, brave lad, with a little of the bluffness that they say all his nation possess, but with a heart of gold, unless I am greatly mistaken.”