“Make for the steps of Santa Maria church.  We will jump out there and trust to our feet.”

The two lads put out all their strength now.  They were some three boats’ lengths ahead before their pursuers were fairly on their track.  They were now rowing for life, for they knew that they could hardly succeed in doubling again, and that the gondola behind them was so well handled, that they could not gain on it at the turnings were they to venture into the narrow channels.  It was a question of speed alone, and so hard did they row that the gondola in pursuit gained but slowly on them, and they were still two lengths ahead when they dashed up to the steps of the church.

Simultaneously they sprang on shore, leaped up the steps, and dashed off at the top of their speed, hearing, as they did so, a crash as the gondola ran into their light craft.  There was a moment’s delay, as the men had to step across their boat to gain the shore, and they were fifty yards ahead before they heard the sound of their pursuers’ feet on the stone steps; but they were lightly clad and shoeless, and carried nothing to impede their movements, and they had therefore little fear of being overtaken.

After racing on at the top of their speed for a few minutes, they stopped and listened.  The sound of their pursuers’ footsteps died away in the distance; and, after taking a few turns to put them off their track, they pursued their way at a more leisurely pace.

“They have smashed the gondola,” Giuseppi said with a sob, for he was very proud of the light craft.

“Never mind the gondola,” Francis said cheerfully.  “If they had smashed a hundred it would not matter.”

“But the woman has got away and we have learned nothing,” Giuseppi said, surprised at his master’s cheerfulness.

“I think we have learned something, Giuseppi.  I think we have learned everything.  I have no doubt the girls are confined in that hut on San Nicolo.  I wonder I never thought of it before; but I made so sure that they would be taken somewhere close to where Mocenigo was staying, that it never occurred to me that they might hide them out there.  I ought to have known that that was just the thing they would do, for while the search would be keen among the islets near the land, and the villages there, no one would think of looking for them on the seaward islands.

“I have no doubt they are there now.  That woman came ashore to report to his friends, and that four-oared boat which has chased us was in waiting off Saint Mark’s, to attack any boat that might be following them.

“We will go to Signor Polani at once and tell him what has happened.  I suppose it is about one o’clock now, but I have not noticed the hour.  It was past eleven before we first met the gondola, and we must have been a good deal more than an hour lying there waiting for them.”

A quarter of an hour’s walking took them to the palazzo of Polani.  They rang twice at the bell at the land entrance, before a face appeared at the little window of the door, and asked who was there.