was found was that of a cousin and intimate of Ruggiero Mocenigo. The
two have been constantly together since the return of the latter from
Constantinople. It was found, by inquiry at the house of the young
man's father, that he left home on the evening upon which the attack
was committed, saying that he was going to the mainland, and might not
be expected to return for some days.

"The council took it for granted, from the wound in his head, and the
fact that a leech has testified that the body had probably been in the
water about three days, that he was the man that was stunned by your
blow, and drowned in the canal. Ruggiero urged that the discovery in no
way affected him; and that his cousin had, no doubt, attempted to carry
off my daughter on his own account. There was eventually a division
among the council on this point, but Maria was sent for, and on being
questioned, testified that the young man had never spoken to her, and
that, indeed, she did not know him even by sight; and the majority
thereupon came to the conclusion that he could only have been acting as
an instrument of Ruggiero's.

"We were not in the apartment while the deliberation was going on, but
when we returned the president announced that, although there was no
absolute proof of Ruggiero's complicity in the affair, yet that,
considering his application for my daughter's hand, his threats on my
refusal to his request, his previous character, and his intimacy with
his cousin, the council had no doubt that the attempt had been made at
his instigation, and therefore sentenced him to banishment from Venice
and the islands for three years."

"I should be better pleased if they had sent him back to
Constantinople, or one of the islands of the Levant," Mr. Hammond said.
"If he is allowed to take up his abode on the mainland, he may be only
two or three miles away, which, in the case of a man of his
description, is much too near to be pleasant for those who have
incurred his enmity."

"That is true," Signor Polani agreed, "and I myself, and my friends,
are indignant that he should not have been banished to a distance,
where he at least would have been powerless for fresh mischief. On the
other hand, his friends will doubtless consider that he has been hardly
treated. However, as far as my daughters are concerned, I will take
good care that he shall have no opportunity of repeating his attempt;
for I have ordered them, on no account whatever, to be ab