e I had laid down
for her; but the rise in the prices in the latter part of your voyage
have more than made up for the loss of the trade in the Black Sea; and
you have done as much in the three months you were absent, as I should
have expected had you been, as I anticipated, six months away.

"You will be some little time before you start again, as I wish to see
how matters are going before I send the Bonito out upon another
adventure. At present nothing is settled here. That there will be war
with Genoa before long is certain, but we would rather postpone it as
long as possible, and the senate has not yet arrived at the decision to
accept the offer of Tenedos. Negotiations are going on with Genoa and
Constantinople, but I have little hope that anything will come of them.

"It is getting late in the season now, and the war will hardly break
out until next spring; but I have no doubt the struggle will then
begin, and preparations are going on with all speed in the dockyards.
We are endeavouring to obtain allies, but the combination is so strong
against Venice that we are meeting with little success, and Ferrara is
really the only friend on whom we can rely, and she is not in a
position to aid us materially, in such a struggle as this will be.

"I am glad to tell you that the affair in which you were concerned,
before you sailed, has now completely dropped. Nothing has been heard
of Mocenigo since he made his escape.

"A decree of banishment was passed against him, but where he is we know
not. That wretched woman was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, but
upon my petition she will be released at the end of six months, on her
promise that she will not again set foot in the territory of the
republic. As Mocenigo has not been brought to trial, there will be no
further official inquiry into the matter, and I have not been further
questioned as to the source from which I obtained my information as to
the girls' hiding place. Your share in the matter is therefore
altogether unsuspected, and I do not think that there is any further
danger to you from Mocenigo's partisans."

"I should be glad enough to remain in Venice a fortnight or so, sir,"
Francis said. "But if, at the end of that time, you have any vessel
going out, I shall prefer to go in her. Now that my studies are over, I
shall very soon get tired of doing nothing. Perhaps in a few years I
may care more for the gaieties of Venice, but certainly at present I
have