ont to visit thy cousin; but as thou entered
the canals this evening----"

A shout on the water caused Don Camillo to pause. On looking out he saw
a dense body of boats sweeping towards the town as if they were all
impelled by a single set of oars. A thousand voices were speaking at
once, and occasionally a general and doleful cry proclaimed that the
floating multitude, which came on, was moved by a common feeling. The
singularity of the spectacle, and the fact that his own gondola lay
directly in the route of the fleet, which was composed of several
hundred boats, drove the examination of the girl, momentarily, from the
thoughts of the noble.

"What have we here, Jacopo?" he demanded, in an under-tone, of the
gondolier who steered his own barge.

"They are fishermen, Signore, and by the manner in which they come down
towards the canals, I doubt they are bent on some disturbance. There has
been discontent among them since the refusal of the Doge to liberate the
boy of their companion from the galleys."

Curiosity induced the people of Don Camillo to linger a minute, and then
they perceived the necessity of pulling out of the course of the
floating mass, which came on like a torrent, the men sweeping their
boats with that desperate stroke which is so often seen among the
Italian oarsmen. A menacing hail, with a command to remain, admonished
Don Camillo of the necessity of downright flight, or of obedience. He
chose the latter, as the least likely to interfere with his own plans.

"Who art thou?" demanded one, who had assumed the character of a leader.
"If men of the Lagunes and Christians, join your friends, and away with
us to St. Mark for justice!"

"What means this tumult?" asked Don Camillo, whose dress effectually
concealed his rank, a disguise that he completed by adopting the
Venetian dialect. "Why are you here in these numbers, friends?"

"Behold!"

Don Camillo turned, and he beheld the withered features and glaring eyes
of old Antonio, fixed in death. The explanation was made by a hundred
voices, accompanied by oaths so bitter, and denunciations so deep, that
had not Don Camillo been prepared by the tale of Jacopo, he would have
found great difficulty in understanding what he heard.

In dragging the Lagunes for fish, the body of Antonio had been found,
and the result was, first, a consultation on the probable means of his
death, and then a collection of the men of his calling, and finally the
scene de