"I wonder at this boldness!" exclaimed Don Camillo. "There must be no delay, lest some spy of the Republic apprise the police. Away, dearest Violetta--away, Donna Florinda! Father, away!"
The governess and her charge pa.s.sed swiftly into the inner rooms. In a minute they returned bearing the caskets of Donna Violetta, and a sufficient supply of necessaries for a short voyage. The instant they reappeared, all was ready; for Don Camillo had long held himself prepared for this decisive moment, and the self-denying Carmelite had little need of superfluities. It was no moment for unnecessary explanation or trivial objections.
"Our hope is in celerity," said Don Camillo. "Secresy is impossible."
He was still speaking, when the monk led the way from the room. Donna Florinda and the half-breathless Violetta followed; Don Camillo drew the arm of Annina under his own, and in a low voice bid her, at her peril, refuse to obey.
The long suite of outer rooms was pa.s.sed without meeting a single observer of the extraordinary movement. But when the fugitive entered the great hall that communicated with the princ.i.p.al stairs, they found themselves in the centre of a dozen menials of both s.e.xes.
"Place," cried the Duke of Sant" Agata, whose person and voice were alike unknown to them. "Your mistress will breathe the air of the ca.n.a.ls."
Wonder and curiosity were alive in every countenance, but suspicion and eager attention were uppermost in the features of many. The foot of Donna Violetta had scarcely touched the pavement of the lower hall, when several menials glided down the flight and quitted the palace by its different outlets. Each sought those who engaged him in the service.
One flew along the narrow streets of the islands, to the residence of the Signor Gradenigo; another sought his son; and one, ignorant of the person of him he served, actually searched an agent of Don Camillo, to impart a circ.u.mstance in which that n.o.ble was himself so conspicuous an actor. To such a pa.s.s of corruption had double-dealing and mystery reduced the household of the fairest and richest in Venice! The gondola lay at the marble steps of the water gate, held against the stones by two of its crew. Don Camillo saw at a glance that the masked gondoliers had neglected none of the precautions he had prescribed, and he inwardly commended their punctuality. Each wore a short rapier at his girdle, and he fancied he could trace beneath the folds of their garments evidence of the presence of the clumsy fire-arms in use at that period. These observations were made while the Carmelite and Violetta entered the boat. Donna Florinda followed, and Annina was about to imitate her example, when she was arrested by the arm of Don Camillo.
"Thy service ends here," whispered the bridegroom. "Seek another mistress; in fault of a better, thou mayest devote thyself to Venice."
The little interruption caused Don Camillo to look backwards, and for a single moment he paused to scrutinize the group of eyes that crowded the hall of the palace, at a respectful distance.
"Adieu, my friends!" he added. "Those among ye who love your mistress shall be remembered."
He would have said more, but a rude seizure of his arms caused him to turn hastily away. He was firm in the grasp of the two gondoliers who had landed. While he was yet in too much astonishment to struggle, Annina, obedient to a signal, darted past him and leaped into the boat.
The oars fell into the water; Don Camillo was repelled by a violent shove backwards into the hall, the gondoliers stepped lightly into their places, and the gondola swept away from the steps, beyond the power of him they left to follow.
"Gino!--miscreant!--what means this treachery?"
The moving of the parting gondola was accompanied by no other sound than the usual washing of the water. In speechless agony Don Camillo saw the boat glide, swifter and swifter at each stroke of the oars, along the ca.n.a.l, and then whirling round the angle of a palace, disappear.
Venice admitted not of pursuit like another city; for there was no pa.s.sage along the ca.n.a.l taken by the gondola, but by water. Several of the boats used by the family, lay within the piles on the great ca.n.a.l, at the princ.i.p.al entrance, and Don Camillo was about to rush into one, and to seize its oars with his own hands, when the usual sounds announced the approach of a gondola from the direction of the bridge that had so long served as a place of concealment to his own domestic.
It soon issued from the obscurity cast by the shadows of the houses, and proved to be a large gondola pulled, like the one which had just disappeared, by six masked gondoliers. The resemblance between the equipments of the two was so exact, that at first not only the wondering Camillo, but all the others present, fancied the latter, by some extraordinary speed, had already made the tour of the adjoining palaces, and was once more approaching the private entrance of that of Donna Violetta.
"Gino!" cried the bewildered bridegroom.
"Signore mio?" answered the faithful domestic.
"Draw nearer, varlet. What meaneth this idle trifling at a moment like this?"
Don Camillo leaped a fearful distance, and happily he reached the gondola. To pa.s.s the men and rush into the canopy needed but a moment; to perceive that it was empty was the work of a glance.
"Villains, have you dared to be false!" cried the confounded n.o.ble.
At that instant the clock of the city began to tell the hour of two, and it was only as that appointed signal sounded heavy and melancholy on the night-air, that the undeceived Camillo got a certain glimpse of the truth.
"Gino," he said, repressing his voice, like one summoning a desperate resolution--"are thy fellows true?"
"As faithful as your own va.s.sals, Signore."
"And thou didst not fail to deliver the note to my agent?"
"He had it before the ink was dry, eccellenza."
"The mercenary villain! He told thee where to find the gondola, equipped as I see it?"
"Signore, he did; and I do the man the justice to say that nothing is wanting, either to speed or comfort."
"Aye, he even deals in duplicates, so tender is his care!" muttered Don Camillo between his teeth. "Pull away, men; your own safety and my happiness now depend on your arms. A thousand ducats if you equal my hopes--my just anger if you disappoint them!"
Don Camillo threw himself on the cushions as he spoke, in bitterness of heart, though he seconded his words by a gesture which bid the men proceed. Gino, who occupied the stern and managed the directing oar, opened a small window in the canopy which communicated with the interior, and bent to take his master"s directions as the boat sprang ahead. Rising from his stooping posture, the practised gondolier gave a sweep with his blade, which caused the sluggish element of the narrow ca.n.a.l to whirl in eddies, and then the gondola glided into the great ca.n.a.l, as if it obeyed an instinct.
CHAPTER XVII.
"Why liest thou so on the green earth?
"Tis not the hour of slumber:--why so pale?"
CAIN.
Notwithstanding his apparent decision, the Duke of Sant" Agata was completely at a loss in what manner to direct his future movements. That he had been duped by one or more of the agents to whom he had been compelled to confide his necessary preparations for the flight he had meditated several days, was too certain to admit of his deceiving himself with the hopes that some unaccountable mistake was the cause of his loss. He saw at once that the Senate was master of the person of his bride, and he too well knew its power and its utter disregard of human obligations when any paramount interest of the state was to be consulted, to doubt for an instant its willingness to use its advantage in any manner that was most likely to contribute to its own views. By the premature death of her uncle, Donna Violetta had become the heiress of vast estates in the dominions of the church, and a compliance with that jealous and arbitrary law of Venice, which commanded all of its n.o.bles to dispose of any foreign possessions they might acquire, was only suspended on account of her s.e.x, and, as has already been seen, with the hope of disposing of her hand in a manner that would prove more profitable to the Republic. With this object still before them, and with the means of accomplishing it in their own hands, the bridegroom well knew that his marriage would not only be denied, but he feared the witnesses of the ceremony would be so disposed of, as to give little reason ever to expect embarra.s.sment from their testimony. For himself, personally, he felt less apprehension, though he foresaw that he had furnished his opponents with an argument that was likely to defer to an indefinite period, if it did not entirely defeat, his claims to the disputed succession. But he had already made up his mind to this result, though it is probable that his pa.s.sion for Violetta had not entirely blinded him to the fact, that her Roman signories would be no unequal offset for the loss. He believed that he might possibly return to his palace with impunity, so far as any personal injury was concerned; for the great consideration he enjoyed in his native land, and the high interest he possessed at the court of Rome, were sufficient pledges that no open violence would be done him. The chief reason why his claim had been kept in suspense, was the wish to profit by his near connexion with the favorite cardinal; and though he had never been able entirely to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of the council in this respect, he thought it probable that the power of the Vatican would not be spared, to save him from any very imminent personal hazard. Still he had given the state of Venice plausible reasons for severity; and liberty, just at that moment, was of so much importance, that he dreaded falling into the hands of the officials, as one of the greatest misfortunes which could momentarily overtake him. He so well knew the crooked policy of those with whom he had to deal, that he believed he might be arrested solely that the government could make an especial merit of his future release, under circ.u.mstances of so seeming gravity. His order to Gino, therefore, had been to pull down the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sage towards the port.
Before the gondola, which sprang at each united effort of its crew, like some bounding animal, entered among the shipping, its master had time to recover his self-possession, and to form some hasty plans for the future. Making a signal for the crew to cease rowing, he came from beneath the canopy. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, boats were plying on the water within the town, and the song was still audible on the ca.n.a.ls. But among the mariners a general stillness prevailed, such as befitted their toil during the day, and their ordinary habits.
"Call the first idle gondolier of thy acquaintance hither, Gino," said Don Camillo, with a.s.sumed calmness; "I would question him."
In less than a minute he was gratified.
"Hast seen any strongly manned gondola plying, of late, in this part of the ca.n.a.l?" demanded Don Camillo, of the man they had stopped.
"None, but this of your own, Signore; which is the fastest of all that pa.s.sed beneath the Rialto in this day"s regatta."
"How knowest thou, friend, aught of the speed of my boat?"
"Signore, I have pulled an oar on the ca.n.a.ls of Venice six-and-twenty years, and I do not remember to have seen a gondola move more swiftly on them than did this very boat but a few minutes ago, when it dashed among the feluccas, further down in the port, as if it were again running for the oar. Corpo di Bacco! There are rich wines in the palaces of the n.o.bles, that men can give such life to wood!"
"Whither did we steer?" eagerly asked Don Camillo.
"Blessed San Teodoro! I do not wonder, eccellenza, that you ask that question, for though it is but a moment since, here I see you lying as motionless on the water as a floating weed!"
"Friend, here is silver--addio."
The gondolier swept slowly onwards, singing a strain in honor of his bark, while the boat of Don Camillo darted ahead. Mystic, felucca, xebec, brigantine, and three-masted ship, were apparently floating past them, as they shot through the maze of shipping, when Gino bent forward and drew the attention of his master to a large gondola, which was pulling with a lazy oar towards them, from the direction of the Lido.
Both boats were in a wide avenue in the midst of the vessels, the usual track of those who went to sea, and there was no object whatever between them. By changing the course of his own boat, Don Camillo soon found himself within an oar"s length of the other. He saw, at a glance, it was the treacherous gondola by which he had been duped.
"Draw, men, and follow!" shouted the desperate Neapolitan, preparing to leap into the midst of his enemies.
"You draw against St. Mark!" cried a warning voice from beneath the canopy. "The chances are unequal, Signore; for the smallest signal would bring twenty galleys to our succor."
Don Camillo might have disregarded this menace, had he not perceived that it caused the half-drawn rapiers of his followers to return to their scabbards.