The Bravo, James Fenimore Cooper [best book reader .txt] 📗

closet was known to them, none of the menials presumed to stop those who issued from the privileged room. Gelsomina, who was even more impatient than her wily companion to escape from a place she believed polluted, was nearly breathless when she reached the gondola. Its owner was in waiting on the steps, and in a moment the boat whirled away from a spot which both of those it contained were, though for reasons so very different, glad to quit.

Gelsomina had forgotten her mask in her hurry, and the gondola was no sooner in the great canal than she put her face at the window of the pavilion in quest of the evening air. The rays of the moon fell upon her guileless eye, and a cheek that was now glowing, partly with offended pride, and partly with joy at her escape from a situation she felt to be so degrading. Her forehead was touched with a finger, and turning she saw the gondolier making a sign of caution. He then slowly lifted his mask.

"Carlo!" had half burst from her lips, but another sign suppressed the cry.

Gelsomina withdrew her head, and, after her beating heart had ceased to throb, she bowed her face and murmured thanksgivings at finding herself, at such a moment, under the protection of one who possessed all her confidence.

The gondolier asked no orders for his direction. The boat moved on, taking the direction of the port, which appeared perfectly natural to the two females.

Annina supposed it was returning to the square, the place she would have sought had she been alone, and Gelsomina, who believed that he whom she called Carlo, toiled regularly as a gondolier for support, fancied, of course, that he was taking her to her ordinary residence.

But though the innocent can endure the scorn of the world, it is hard indeed to be suspected by those they love. All that Annina had told her of the character of Don Camillo and his associates came gradually across the mind of the gentle Gelsomina, and she felt the blood creeping to her temples, as she saw the construction her lover might put on her conduct. A dozen times did the artless girl satisfy herself with saying inwardly, "he knows me and will believe the best," and as often did her feelings prompt her to tell the truth. Suspense is far more painful, at such moments, than even vindication, which, in itself, is a humiliating duty to the virtuous. Pretending a desire to breathe the air, she left her cousin in the canopy. Annina was not sorry to be alone, for she had need to reflect on all the windings of the sinuous path on which she had entered.

Gelsomina succeeded in passing the pavilion, and in gaining the side of the gondolier.

"Carlo!"--she said, observing that he continued to row in silence.

"Gelsomina!"

"Thou hast not questioned me!"

"I know thy treacherous cousin, and can believe thou art her dupe. The moment to learn the truth will come."

"Thou didst not know me, Carlo, when I called thee from the bridge?"

"I did not. Any fare that would occupy my time was welcome."

"Why dost thou call Annina treacherous?"

"Because Venice does not hold a more wily heart, or a falser tongue."

Gelsomina remembered the warning of Donna Florinda. Possessed of the advantage of blood, and that reliance which the inexperienced always place in the integrity of their friends, until exposure comes to destroy the illusion, Annina had found it easy to persuade her cousin of the unworthiness of her guests. But here was one who had all her sympathies, who openly denounced Annina herself. In such a dilemma the bewildered girl did what nature and her feelings suggested. She recounted, in a low but rapid voice, the incidents of the evening, and Annina's construction of the conduct of the females whom she had left behind in the prison.

Jacopo listened so intently that his oar dragged in the water.

"Enough," he said, when Gelsomina, blushing with her own earnestness to stand exculpated in his eyes, had done; "I understand it all. Distrust thy cousin, for the Senate itself is not more false."

The pretended Carlo spoke cautiously, but in a firm voice. Gelsomina took his meaning, though wondering at what she heard, and returned to Annina within. The gondola proceeded, as if nothing had occurred.


CHAPTER XXV.

"Enough.
I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee:
Remember."
KING JOHN.


Jacopo was deeply practised in the windings of Venetian deceit. He knew how unceasingly the eyes of the Councils, through their agents, were on the movements of those in whom they took an interest, and he was far from feeling all the advantage circumstances had seemingly thrown in his way. Annina was certainly in his power, and it was not possible that she had yet communicated the intelligence, derived from Gelsomina, to any of her employers. But a gesture, a look in passing the prison-gates, the appearance of duresse, or an exclamation, might give the alarm to some one of the thousand spies of the police. The disposal of Annina's person in some place of safety, therefore, became the first and the most material act. To return to the palace of Don Camillo, would be to go into the midst of the hirelings of the Senate; and although the Neapolitan, relying on his rank and influence, had preferred this step, when little importance was attached to the detention of the girl, and when all she knew had been revealed, the case was altered, now that she might become the connecting link in the information necessary to enable the officers to find the fugitives.

The gondola moved on. Palace after palace was passed, and the impatient Annina thrust her head from a window to note its progress. They came among the shipping of the port, and her uneasiness sensibly increased. Making? pretext similar to that of Gelsomina, the wine-seller's daughter quitted the pavilion, to steal to the side of the gondolier.

"I would be landed quickly at the water-gate of the Doge's palace," she said, slipping a piece of silver into the hand of the boatman.

"You shall be served, Bella Donna. But--Diamine! I marvel that a girl of thy wit should not scent the treasures in yonder felucca!"

"Dost thou mean the Sorrentine?"

"What other padrone brings as well flavored liquors within the Lido! Quiet thy impatience to land, daughter of honest old Maso, and traffic with the padrone, for the comfort of us of the canals."

"How! Thou knowest me, then?"

"To be the pretty wine-seller of the Lido. Corpo di Bacco! Thou art as well known as the sea-wall itself to us gondoliers."

"Why art thou masked? Thou canst not be Luigi!"

"It is little matter whether I am called Luigi, or Enrico, or Giorgio; I am thy customer, and honor the shortest hair of thy eyebrows. Thou knowest, Annina, that the young patricians have their frolics, and they swear us gondoliers to keep secret till all danger of detection is over; were any impertinent eyes following me, I might be questioned as to the manner of having passed the earlier hours."

"Methinks it would be better to have given thee gold, and to have sent thee at once to thy home."

"To be followed like a denounced Hebrew to my door. When I have confounded my boat with a thousand others it will be time to uncover. Wilt thou to the Bella Sorrentina?"

"Nay, 'tis not necessary to ask, since thou takest the direction of thine own will?"

The gondolier laughed and nodded his head, as if he would give his companion to understand that he was master of her secret wishes. Annina was hesitating in what manner she should make him change his purpose, when the gondola touched the felucca's side.

"We will go up and speak to the padrone," whispered Jacopo.

"It is of no avail; he is without liquors."

"Trust him not; I know the man and his pretences,"

"Thou forgettest my cousin."

"She is an innocent and unsuspecting child."

Jacopo lifted Annina, as he spoke, on the deck of the Bella Sorrentina, in a manner between gallantry and force, and leaped after her. Without pausing, or suffering her to rally her thoughts, he led her to the cabin stairs, which she descended, wondering at his conduct, but determined not to betray her own secret wrongs on the customs to a stranger.

Stefano Milano was asleep in a sail on deck. A touch aroused him, and a sign gave him to understand that the imaginary Roderigo stood before him.

"A thousand pardons, Signore," said the gaping mariner; "is the freight come?"

"In part only. I have brought thee a certain Annina Torti, the daughter of old Tommaso Torti, a wine-seller of the Lido."

"Santa Madre! does the Senate think it necessary to send one like her from the city in secret?"

"It does; and it lays great stress on her detention. I have come hither with her, without suspicion of my object, and she has been prevailed on to enter thy cabin, under a pretence of some secret dealings in wines. According to our former understanding, it will be thy business to make sure of her presence."

"That is easily done," returned Stefano, stepping forward and closing the cabin-door, which he secured by a bolt.

"She is alone, now, with the image of our Lady, and a better occasion to repeat her aves cannot offer."

"This is well, if thou canst keep her so. It is now time to lift thy anchors, and to go beyond the tiers of the vessels with the felucca."

"Signore, there wants but five minutes for that duty, since we are ready."

"Then perform it, in all speed, for much depends on the management of this delicate duty. I will be with thee anon. Harkee, Master Stefano; take heed of thy prisoner, for the Senate makes great account of her security."

The Calabrian made such a gesture, as one initiated uses, when he would express a confidence in his own shrewdness. While the pretended Roderigo re-entered his gondola, Stefano began to awaken his people. As the gondola entered the canal of San Marco, the sails of the felucca fell, and the low Calabrian vessel stole along the tiers towards the clear water beyond.

The boat quickly touched the steps of the water-gate of the palace. Gelsomina entered the arch, and glided up the Giant's Stairway, the route by which she had quitted the palace. The halberdier was the same that watched as she went out. He spoke to her, in gallantry, but offered no impediment to her entrance.

"Haste, noble ladies, hasten for the love of the Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Gelsomina, as she burst into the room in which Donna Violetta and her companion awaited her appearance. "I have endangered your liberty by my weakness, and there is not a moment to lose. Follow while you may, nor stop to whisper even a prayer."

"Thou art hurried and breathless," returned Donna Florinda; "hast thou seen the Duca di Sant' Agata?"

"Nay, question me not, but follow, noble dames." Gelsomina seized the lamp, and casting a glance that appealed strongly to her visitors for tacit compliance, she led the way