er, for the dangers of
making enemies are thoroughly appreciated here; but you are perfectly
right, and I like your steady love of the truth, whatever the
consequences to yourself; but certainly as soon as the matter is
concluded, it will be better for you to quit Venice for a time."

"Are you going to the council direct, signor?"

"No. I am going first to the magistrates, to tell them that I have in
my hands five persons, who have been engaged in carrying off my
daughters, and beg them to send at once to take them into their
custody. Then I shall go before the council, and demand justice upon
Mocenigo, against whom we have now conclusive evidence. You will not be
wanted at the magistracy. My own evidence, that I found them keeping
guard over my daughters, will be quite sufficient for the present, and
after that the girls' evidence will be sufficient to convict them,
without your name appearing in the affair at all.

"I will try whether I cannot keep your name from appearing before the
council also. Yes, I think I might do that; and as a first step, I give
you my promise not to name you, unless I find it absolutely necessary.
You may as well remain here in the gondola until I return."

It was upwards of an hour before Signor Polani came back to the boat.

"I have succeeded," he said, "in keeping your name out of it. I first
of all told my daughters' story, and then said that, having obtained
information that Ruggiero, before he was banished from Venice, was in
the habit of going sometimes at night to a hut on San Nicolo, I
proceeded thither, and found my daughters concealed in the hut whose
position had been described to me. Of course, they inquired where I had
obtained the information; but I replied that, as they knew, I had
offered a large reward which would lead to my daughters' discovery, and
that this reward had attracted one in the secret of Mocenigo, but that,
for the man's own safety, I had been compelled to promise that I would
not divulge his name.

"Some of the council were inclined to insist, but others pointed out
that, for the ends of justice, it mattered in no way how I obtained the
information. I had, at any rate, gone to the island and found my
daughters there; and their evidence, if it was in accordance with what
I had stated, was amply sufficient to bring the guilt of the abduction
of my daughters home to Ruggiero, against whom other circumstances had
already excited suspicion. A galley has alre