By changing the course of his own boat, Don Camillo soon found
himself within an oar's length of the other. He saw, at a glance, it was
the treacherous gondola by which he had been duped.
"Draw, men, and follow!" shouted the desperate Neapolitan, preparing to
leap into the midst of his enemies.
"You draw against St. Mark!" cried a warning voice from beneath the
canopy. "The chances are unequal, Signore; for the smallest signal would
bring twenty galleys to our succor."
Don Camillo might have disregarded this menace, had he not perceived
that it caused the half-drawn rapiers of his followers to return to
their scabbards.
"Robber!" he answered, "restore her whom you have spirited away."
"Signore, you young nobles are often pleased to play your extravagances
with the servants of the Republic. Here are none but the gondoliers and
myself." A movement of the boat permitted Don Camillo to look into the
covered part, and he saw that the other uttered no more than the truth.
Convinced of the uselessness of further parley, knowing the value of
every moment, and believing he was on a track which might still lead to
success, the young Neapolitan signed to his people to go on. The boats
parted in silence, that of Don Camillo proceeding in the direction from
which the other had just come.
In a short time the gondola of Don Camillo was in an open part of the
Giudecca, and entirely beyond the tiers of the shipping.
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