Chapter 25

"Enough.
I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee:
Remember."
KING JOHN.

Jacopo was deeply practised in the windings of Venetian deceit. He knew
how unceasingly the eyes of the Councils, through their agents, were on
the movements of those in whom they took an interest, and he was far
from feeling all the advantage circumstances had seemingly thrown in his
way. Annina was certainly in his power, and it was not possible that she
had yet communicated the intelligence, derived from Gelsomina, to any of
her employers. But a gesture, a look in passing the prison-gates, the
appearance of duresse, or an exclamation, might give the alarm to some
one of the thousand spies of the police. The disposal of Annina's person
in some place of safety, therefore, became the first and the most
material act. To return to the palace of Don Camillo, would be to go
into the midst of the hirelings of the Senate; and although the
Neapolitan, relying on his rank and influence, had preferred this step,
when little importance was attached to the detention of the girl, and
when all she knew had been revealed, the case was altered, now that she
might become the connecting link in the information necessary to enable
the officers to find the fugitives.

The gondola moved on. Palace after palace was passed, and the impatient
Annina thrust her head from a window to note its progress. They came
among the shipping of the port, and her uneasiness sensibly increased.
Making? pretext similar to that of Gelsomina, the wine-seller's daughter
quitted the pavilion, to steal to the side of the gondolier.

"I would be landed quickly at the water-gate of the Doge's palace," she
said, slipping a piece of silver into the hand of the boatman.

"You shall be served, Bella Donna. But--Diamine! I marvel that a girl of
thy wit should not scent the treasures in yonder felucca!"

"Dost thou mean the Sorrentine?"

"What other padrone brings as well flavored liquors within the Lido!
Quiet thy impatience to land, daughter of honest old Maso, and traffic
with the padrone, for the comfort of us of the canals."

"How! Thou knowest me, then?"

"To be the pretty wine-seller of the Lido. Corpo di Bacco! Thou art as
well known as the sea-wall itself to us gondoliers."

"Why art thou masked? Thou canst not be Luigi!"

"It is little matter whether I am called Luigi, or Enrico, or Giorgio; I
am thy customer, and honor the shortest hair of thy eyebrows. Thou
knowest, Annina, that the young patricians have their frolics, and they
swear us gondoliers to keep secret till all danger of detection is over;