Chapter 3 - Page 2

other there, at the entrance of the Giudecca. They
are a people who get together, afloat or ashore, for the benefit of the
tongue. Here we are, at the end of our journey."

The oar of Gino gave a backward sweep, and the gondola was at rest by
the side of a felucca.

"A happy night to the Bella Sorrentina and her worthy padrone!" was the
greeting of the gondolier, as he put his foot on the deck of the vessel.
"Is the honest Stefano Milano on board the swift felucca?"

The Calabrian was not slow to answer; and in a few moments the padrone
and his two visitors were in close and secret conference.

"I have brought one here who will be likely to put good Venetian
sequins into thy pocket, caro," observed the gondolier, when the
preliminaries of discourse had been properly observed. "She is the
daughter of a most conscientious wine-dealer, who is quite as ready at
transplanting your Sicilian grapes into the islands as he is willing and
able to pay for them."

"And one, no doubt, as handsome as she is ready," said the mariner, with
blunt gallantry, "were the black cloud but fairly driven from before her
face."

"A mask is of little consequence in a bargain provided the money be
forthcoming. We are always in the Carnival at Venice; and he who would
buy, or he who would sell, has the same right to hide his face as to
hide his thoughts. What hast thou in the way of forbidden liquors,
Stefano, that my companion may not lose the night in idle words?"

"Per Diana! Master Gino, thou puttest thy questions with little
ceremony. The hold of the felucca is empty, as thou mayest see by
stepping to the hatches; and as for any liquor, we are perishing for a
drop to warm the blood."

"And so far from coming to seek it here," said Annina, "we should have
done better to have gone into the cathedral, and said an Ave for thy
safe voyage home. And now that our wit is spent, we will quit thee,
friend Stefano, for some other less skilful in answers."

"Cospetto! thou knowest not what thou sayest," whispered Gino, when he
found that the wary Annina was not disposed to remain. "The man never
enters the meanest creek in Italy, without having something useful
secreted in the felucca on his own account. One purchase of him would
settle the question between the quality of thy father's wines and those
of Battista. There is not a gondolier in Venice but will resort to thy
shop if the intercourse with this fellow can be fairly settled."

Annina hesitated; long practised in the small, but secret exceedingly
hazardous commerce which her father, notwithstanding the vigilance and