There were four other arrivals. The same questions were asked and
answered each time. Then some minutes elapsed without any fresh comers,
and Francis thought that the number was probably complete. He lay down
on the sand, and with his dagger began to make a hole through the wood,
which was old and rotten, and gave him no difficulty in piercing it.

He applied his eye to the orifice, and saw that there were some twelve
men seated round a table. Of those facing him he knew three or four by
sight; all were men of good family. Two of them belonged to the
council, but not to the inner Council of Ten. One, sitting at the top
of the table, was speaking; but although Francis applied his ear to the
hole he had made, he could hear but a confused murmur, and could not
catch the words. He now rose cautiously, scooped up the sand so as to
cover the hole in the wall, and swept a little down over the spot where
he had been lying, although he had no doubt that the breeze, which
would spring up before morning, would soon drift the light shifting
sand over it, and obliterate the mark of his recumbent figure. Then he
went round to the other side of the hut and bored another hole, so as
to obtain a view of the faces of those whose backs had before been
towards him.

One of these was Ruggiero Mocenigo. Another was a stranger to Francis,
and some difference in the fashion of his garments indicated that he
was not a Venetian, but, Francis thought, a Hungarian. The other three
were not nobles. One of them Francis recognized, as being a man of much
influence among the fishermen and sailors. The other two were unknown
to him.

As upwards of an hour had been spent in making the two holes and taking
observations, Francis thought it better now to make his way back to his