itted his people to pursue the direction originally taken, in pure
indecision. He was certain that his bride was in one of the many barques
in sight, but he possessed no clue to lead him towards the right one,
nor any sufficient means of pursuit were he even master of that
important secret. When he landed, therefore, it was with the simple hope
of being able to form some general conjecture as to the portion of the
Republic's dominions in which he might search for her he had lost, by
observing to what part of the Adriatic the different feluccas held their
way. He had determined on immediate pursuit, however, and before he
quitted the gondola, he once more turned to his confidential gondolier
to give the necessary instructions.

"Thou knowest, Gino," he said, "that there is one born a vassal on my
estates, here in the port, with a felucca from the Sorrentine shore?"

"I know the man better than I know my own faults Signore, or even my own
virtues."

"Go to him at once, and make sure of his presence. I have imagined a
plan to decoy him into the service of his lord; but I would now know the
condition of his vessel."

Gino said a few words in commendation of the zeal of his friend Stefano,
and in praise of the Bella Sorrentina, as the gondola receded from the
shore; and then he dashed his oar into the water, like a man in earnest
to execute the commission.

There is a lonely spot on the Lido di Palestrina where Catholic
exclusion has decreed that the remains of all who die in Venice, without
the pale of the church of Rome, shall moulder into their kindred dust.
Though it is not distant from the ordinary landing and the few buildings
which line the shore, it is a place that, in itself, is no bad emblem of
a hopeless lot. Solitary, exposed equally to the hot airs of the south
and the bleak blasts of the Alps, frequently covered with the spray of
the Adriatic, and based on barren sands, the utmost that human art,
aided by a soil which has been fattened by human remains, can do, has
been to create around the modest graves a meagre vegetation, that is in
slight contrast to the sterility of most of the bank. This place of
interment is without the relief of trees: at the present day it is
uninclosed, and in the opinions of those who have set it apart for
heretic and Jew, it is unblessed. And yet, though condemned alike to
this, the last indignity which man can inflict on his fellow, the two
proscribed classes furnish a melanch