The Bravo (32 page)

"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
canal, and then whirling round the angle of a palace, disappear.

Venice admitted not of pursuit like another city; for there was no
passage along the canal taken by the gondola, but by water. Several of
the boats used by the family, lay within the piles on the great canal,
at the principal 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 pass 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 noble.

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 vassals, 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
canal to whirl in eddies, and then the gondola glided into the great
canal, as if it obeyed an instinct.

"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
nobles to dispose of any foreign possessions they might acquire, was
only suspended on account of her sex, 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 embarrassment 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 passion 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 circumstances of so seeming gravity. His order to Gino, therefore,
had been to pull down the principal passage 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 canals. 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 assumed 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 canal?" demanded Don Camillo, of the man they had stopped.

"None, but this of your own, Signore; which is the fastest of all that
passed 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 canals 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
nobles, 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.

"Robber!" he answered, "restore her whom you have spirited away."

"Signore, you young nobles are often pleased to play your extravagances
with the servants of the Republic. Here are none but the gondoliers and
myself." A movement of the boat permitted Don Camillo to look into the
covered part, and he saw that the other uttered no more than the truth.
Convinced of the uselessness of further parley, knowing the value of
every moment, and believing he was on a track which might still lead to
success, the young Neapolitan signed to his people to go on. The boats
parted in silence, that of Don Camillo proceeding in the direction from
which the other had just come.

In a short time the gondola of Don Camillo was in an open part of the
Giudecca, and entirely beyond the tiers of the shipping. It was so late
that the moon had begun to fall, and its light was cast obliquely on the
bay, throwing the eastern sides of the buildings and the other objects
into shadow. A dozen different vessels were seen, aided by the
land-breeze, steering towards the entrance of the port. The rays of the
moon fell upon the broad surface of those sides of their canvas which
were nearest to the town, and they resembled so many spotless clouds,
sweeping the water and floating seaward.

"They are sending my wife to Dalmatia!" cried Don Camillo, like a man
on whom the truth began to dawn.

"Signore mio!" exclaimed the astonished Gino.

"I tell thee, sirrah, that this accursed Senate hath plotted against my
happiness, and having robbed me of thy mistress, hath employed one of
the many feluccas that I see, to transport her to some of its
strongholds on the eastern coast of the Adriatic."

"Blessed Maria! Signor Duca, and my honored master; they say that the
very images of stone in Venice have ears, and that the horses of bronze
will kick, if an evil word is spoken against those up above."

"Is it not enough, varlet, to draw curses from the meek Job, to rob him
of a wife? Hast thou no feeling for thy mistres?'

"I did not dream, eccellenza, that you were so happy as to have the one,
or that I was so honored as to have the other."

"Thou remindest me of my folly, good Gino. In aiding me on this
occasion, thou wilt have thy own fortune in view, as thy efforts, like
those of thy fellows, will be made in behalf of the lady to whom I have
just plighted a husband's vows."

"San Theodoro help us all, and hint what is to be done! The lady is most
happy, Signor Don Camillo, and if I only knew by what name to mention
her she should never be forgotten in any prayer that so humble a sinner
might dare to offer."

"Thou hast not forgotten the beautiful lady I drew from the Giudecca?"

"Corpo di Bacco! Your eceellenza floated like a swan, and swam faster
than a gull. Forgotten! Signore, no,—I think of it every time I hear a
plash in the canals, and every time I think of it I curse the Ancona-man
in my heart. St. Theodore forgive me if it be unlike a Christian to do
so. But, though we all tell marvels of what our Lord did in the
Giudecca, the dip of its waters is not the marriage ceremony, nor can we
speak with much certainty of beauty that was seen to so great
disadvantage."

"Thou art right, Gino. But that lady, the illustrious Donna Violetta
Tiepolo, the daughter and heiress of a famed senator, is now thy
mistress. It remains for us to establish her in the Castle of Sant'
Agata, where I shall defy Venice and its agents."