Chapter 24 - Page 2

applied proved that the
keepers, one of whom was her own father, had not fully known how to
estimate the powers of the innocent and simple.

Provided with the keys in question, Gelsomina took a lamp and passed
upwards from the mezzinino in which she dwelt, to the first floor of the
edifice, instead of descending to its court. Door was opened after door,
and many a gloomy corridor was passed by the gentle girl, with the
confidence of one who knew her motive to be good. She soon crossed the
Bridge of Sighs, fearless of interruption in that unfrequented gallery,
and entered the palace. Here she made her way to a door that opened on
the common and public vomitories of the structure. Moving with
sufficient care to make impunity from detection sure, she extinguished
the light and applied the key. At the next instant she was on the vast
and gloomy stairway. It required but a moment to descend it, and to
reach the covered gallery which surrounded the court. A halberdier was
within a few feet of her. He looked at the unknown female with interest;
but as it was not his business to question those who issued from the
building, nothing was said. Gelsomina walked on. A half-repenting but
vindictive being was dropping an accusation in the lion's mouth.
Gelsomina stopped involuntarily until the secret accuser had done his
treacherous work and departed. Then, when she was about to proceed, she
saw that the halberdier at the head of the Giant's stairway was smiling
at her indecision, like one accustomed to such scenes.

"Is there danger in quitting the palace?" she asked of the rough
mountaineer.

"Corpo di Bacco! There might have been an hour since, Bella Donna; but
the rioters are muzzled and at their prayers."

Gelsomina hesitated no longer. She descended the well known flight, down
which the head of Faliero had rolled, and was soon beneath the arch of
the gate. Here the timid and unpractised maid again stopped, for she
could not venture into the square without assuring herself, like a deer
about to quit its cover, of the tranquillity of the place into which she
was to enter.

The agents of the police had been too much alarmed by the rising of the
fishermen not to call their usual ingenuity and finesse into play, the
moment the disturbance was appeased. Money had been given to the
mountebanks and ballad singers to induce them to reappear, and groups of
hirelings, some in masks and others without concealment, were
ostentatiously assembled in different parts of the piazza. In short,
those usual expedients were resorted to which are constantly used to
restore the confidence of a people, in those countries in which
civilization is so new, that they are not yet considered sufficiently