The heavens were clear and calm; the newly-risen moon was but a thin
crescent of silver; in the south a large planet was shining. All around
him, as it seemed, stretched a vast plain of water, as dark and silent
and serene as the overarching sky. Then, far ahead, he could catch a
glimpse of a pale line stretching across the watery plain--a curve of
the many-arched viaduct along which the train was thundering; and beyond
that again, and low down at the horizon, two or three minute and dusky
points of orange. These lights were the lights of Venice.

This traveller was not much hampered with luggage. When finally the
train was driven into the glare of the station, and the usual roar and
confusion began, he took his small bag in his hand and rapidly made his
way through the crowd; then out and down the broad stone steps, and into
a gondola. In a couple of minutes he was completely away from all that
glare and bustle and noise; nothing around him but darkness and an
absolute silence.

The city seemed as the City of the Dead. The tall and sombre buildings
on each side of the water-highway were masses of black--blackest of all
where they showed against the stars. The ear sought in vain for any
sound of human life; there was nothing but the lapping of the water
along the side of the boat, and the slow, monotonous plash of the oar.

Father and farther into the silence and the darkness; and now here and
there a window, close down to the water, and heavily barred with
rectangular bars of iron, shows a dull red light; but there is no sound,
nor any passing shadow within. The man who is standing by the
hearse-like cabin of the gondola observes and thinks. These black
buildings; the narrow and secret canals; the stillness of the night: are
they not suggestive enough--of revenge, a quick blow, and the silence of