others had
scattered.

"Thou, Gigio, tell the good padre!" says the bright-eyed young
contadina, pulling the gray sleeve of her fisherman who stands stolidly
beside her.

"_Si, si_," he answers indifferently, shrugging his shoulders and
relapsing into silence, as he pushes his wife and mother before him for
a refuge; for the men of the islands were less at home in argument with
the priests than were the women of their households.

"It is thus, your Reverence," the young woman explains cheerily. "It is
the grandmother who is afraid. Santa Maria! _how_ she is afraid!" She
touches her forehead significantly.

The simple old woman, comprehending only that they speak of her, drops a
courtesy, looking furtively about her with troubled eyes, and fumbling
over her beads; the "protest" has no meaning for her, although it is
written in good Venetian.

But a few words suffice for such as these who have caught only some
vague hint of the Holy Father's displeasure, and are reassured by the
open church and the promise of Mass and benediction.

It is those others who make trouble; they come, from time to time,--by
twos and threes, never alone,--and read for themselves, with lowering
brows, but ask no questions. And sometimes, if they watch too silently,
the courteous friar who has graciously interpreted the message which is
above the heads of the crowd, exchanges a glance of intelligence with
some gay young signor who belongs to the great army of secret
service--as revealed to the friar on guard by the password of the day;
and the sullen-browed group is courteously accosted by the young
noble--"Excuse me, signori, you are strangers in Venice; a gondola is
waiting to conduct you to the palace."

They will be tried as secret agents of the enemy. But resistance is
rare, for an escort of guards pours out from the doorways and calles, if
a stiletto but gleam in the sunlight; and no secret agent may cope with
Venice in promptness of self-defense and ingenuity of prevention.

It is interesting in the campo in these early days, before the effect of
the government's measures for coercing the opinions of the populace is
fully declared.

"I am a good Catholic, most reverend father; I keep the mariegole; every
year I go to confession," protests some sturdy gondolier, who has been
made anxious by his womenfolk. "And many a fare I pay to light the
traghetto of San Nicolo; with an ave for the favor of the Blessed Mother
to confound the s