A few minutes later the bow of the gondola ran up on the sandy shore of
San Nicolo. The stranger made his way forward and leapt out, and with
the words, "It may be two hours before I am back," walked rapidly away.

"Why, Messer Francisco," Giuseppi said when their passenger was well
out of hearing, "what on earth possessed you to accept a fare to such a
place as this? Of course, for myself, I am glad enough to earn half a
ducat, which will buy me a new jacket with silver buttons for the next
festa; but to make such a journey as this was too much, and it will be
very late before we are back. If the padrone knew it he would be very
angry."

"I didn't do it to enable you to earn half a ducat, Giuseppi, although
I am glad enough you should do so; but I did it because it seemed to
promise the chance of an adventure. There must be something in this. A
noble--for I have no doubt he is one--would never be coming out to San
Nicolo, at this time of night, without some very strong motive. There
can be no rich heiress whom he might want to carry off living here, so
that can't be what he has come for. I think there must be some secret
meeting, for as we came across the lagoon I saw one or two beats in the
distance heading in this direction. Anyhow, I mean to try and find out
what it all means."

"You had better not, sir," Giuseppi said earnestly. "If there is any
plot on foot we had best not get mixed up in it. No one is too high or
too low to escape the vengeance of the council, if found plotting
against the state; and before now gondolas, staved in and empty, have
been found drifting on the lagoons, and the men who rowed them have
never been heard of again. Once in the dungeons of Saint Mark it would
be of no use to plead that you had entered into the affair simply for