ust confess that in
my zeal I have betrayed my own father, and that in me the promptings of
our weak nature have been quite mortified. Three weeks ago I observed
that there was a kind of cabal between four or five notables of the town
of Isola, where I live. I knew them to be disaffected to the Government
on account of certain contraband articles which had been confiscated. The
first chaplain--a subject of Austria by birth--was in the plot. They
gathered together of evenings in an inn, in a room where there was a bed;
there they drank and talked, and afterwards went their ways. As I was
determined to discover the conspiracy, I was brave enough to hide under
the bed on a day on which I was sure I would not be seen. Towards the
evening my gentlemen came, and began to talk; amongst other things, they
said that the town of Isola was not within the jurisdiction of St. Mark,
but rather in the principality of Trieste, as it could not possibly be
considered to form part of the Venetian territory. The chaplain said to
the chief of the plot, a man named Pietro Paolo, that if he and the
others would sign a document to that effect, he himself would go to the
imperial ambassador, and that the Empress would not only take possession
of the island, but would reward them for what they had done. They all
professed themselves ready to go on, and the chaplain promised to bring
the document the next day, and afterwards to take it to the ambassadors.

"I determined to frustrate this detestable project, although one of the
conspirators was my gossip--a spiritual relationship which gave him a
greater claim on me than if he had been my own brother.

"After they were gone, I came out of my hiding-place and did not think it
necessary to expose myself to danger by hiding again as I had found out
sufficient for my purpose. I set out the same night in a boat, and
reached here the next day before noon. I had the names of the six rebels
written down, and I took the paper to the secretary of the Tribunal,
telling him all I had heard. He ordered me to appear, the day following,
at the palace, and an agent of the Government should go back with me to
Isola that I might point the chaplain out to him, as he had probably not
yet gone to the Austrian ambassador's. 'That done,' said the lord
secretary, 'you will no longer meddle in the matter.' I executed his
orders, and after having shewn the chaplain to the agent, I was at
leisure for my own affairs.

"Aft