"You row, of course?" May had considered her question to be quite in line with the conversation. "Is it very difficult?"

"Not after you get the knack. That is, the forward oar gets going after a while. I rather think you would have to begin almost in long clothes as these gondoliers do to get anything like their skill in really handling the boat."

And now, in reply to Uncle Dan's artful subst.i.tute for a compliment, one of the prospective frights remarked: "Mr. Daymond says they have a lighter oar that he used to row with when he was a boy. He is going to get it out for us to-morrow, and then we must all learn to row."

"I think I should prefer to learn by observation," Uncle Dan demurred, as he pulled his stiff leg out from under the table. Upon which, dinner being over, the girls went off in search of their wraps, while the Colonel stepped out between the gla.s.s doors, and strolled down to the bottom of the garden, where the water lapped the stone parapet.

The dusk had gathered and the stars were coming out. The water was dotted with gondola-lights that twinkled here and there, like detached will-o'-the wisps, the black hulls of the boats not being clearly distinguishable in the shadow. Every gondola was out, excepting the few unlucky ones that were detained for ferry service; for there was to be a _festa_ this evening, and the _forestieri_,--by which pretty woodsy name the tourist is designated in the most poetic of tongues,--could be counted upon to pay fancy prices.

The Colonel, secure in his possession of Vittorio, took no part in the bargaining that was going on at the hotel steps, a few yards away, and all along the line of the garden wall. He was standing beside the iron railing, pulling at a contemplative cigar, and listening, with considerable relish, to the wrangling of the gondoliers, when he heard a voice just under the wall, saying: "_Buona sera_, Signore! It's Nanni."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The gondola is the centre of everything; it is Venice and a living creature besides"]

The Colonel had not observed that one of the shadowy barks had glided close in under the wall at his feet.

"Why, Nanni!" he exclaimed; and reaching down over the railing he clasped a strong brown hand.

The man was standing at the stern of the gondola, steadying the oar with one hand. He had flung his hat to the floor of the boat, and as he stood there, bare-headed, the garden lights shining full upon his upturned face, he made a striking picture. His hair was absolutely black, and his face was of the pure Italian type, very dark, and cast in n.o.ble lines.

About the mouth and eyes, a touch of austere melancholy was discernible, even now, in the animation of the moment. He was like his brother, though his face lacked the sunlit quality which was his brother's chief charm of countenance. On the other hand, the intelligence of his brother's face was here developed into something higher and more serious,--higher and sadder, the Colonel thought, in the moment's pause that followed. He had not seen this protege of his for ten years, and the years had left their impress upon him.

"Vittorio has met with a slight accident," Nanni was saying. "He has twisted his wrist, and if he rows this evening it will get worse. Will the Signore permit me to act as subst.i.tute?"

The Signore looked disturbed.

"I don't know, Nanni, how that would work," he said. "My nieces, you know. I'm afraid they would find you out."

"No fear of that, Signore. I'm as good a gondolier as ever I was, and I can hold my tongue."

The Colonel looked at him critically. To the initiated, there was a good deal both in the man's speech and bearing to rouse suspicion. A subtle difference that would hardly be defined as superiority; was it not rather something contradictory, not quite h.o.m.ogeneous, and in so far disadvantageous? The Colonel was not addicted to careful a.n.a.lysis of his impressions, and he felt himself cornered.

"I hope you won't misunderstand me, Nanni," he said, apologetically.

"I'm immensely proud of you;--it isn't that. But,--well, it's not my way to talk about things. I suppose it's crochety, but somehow, I like to keep things separate, you know. If you talk about a thing it usually spoils it."

It did not once occur to the Colonel that the man of education, and presumably of some social standing, would feel any aversion to a temporary relinquishment of these advantages. To the _padrone_, the skilled physician who owed to him his education, was still, first and foremost, the son of his old gondolier, in whom, when a bright boy of fifteen, a week in hospital with a broken arm had aroused a consuming ambition to be a doctor. The education, the profession, seemed to the Colonel--perhaps because it was primarily due to him,--accidental and extraneous. Fundamentally he was still the gondolier's son, the member of a caste too imperative and enduring in character to yield to circ.u.mstances.

And the really noteworthy feature of the situation was the fact that the gondolier's son fully shared the view of the _padrone_. Once in Venice, among his own people, Giovanni Scuro felt as thoroughly at home in the character of gondolier, as if he had never learned the meaning of the word science. Hence he could answer, with perfect sincerity: "Si, Signore; I understand. But you may trust me. And you will go out with me this evening?"

"Why, yes; I suppose we had better," said the Colonel, somewhat rea.s.sured.

"And to-morrow, if Vittorio is not able to row? Of course that is as the Signore wishes. Another gondolier can be had to-morrow for the asking; but to-night, the prices are appalling. They have no consciences, these men."

"We'll see how it works to-night. Ah! there are my nieces. We will meet you at the door. And, by the way, Nanni, have you picked up any English?"

"No, Signore; only French."

As the gondola came up to the landing the party stepped aboard as quickly as might be, to clear the way for others who were waiting their turn, and it occurred to Uncle Dan that the girls might, after all, not notice the new man at the oar. But he had reckoned without May's observant eyes. The moment the boat was free of the crowd, she turned sharp about and looked at the _gondolier_.

"Why, Uncle Dan," she cried. "We've got a new man! Did you know it?"

"Yes; Vittorio has twisted his hand, and his brother has come to take his place."

"His brother? Oh, yes; he does look like him. We were lucky to get him, were we not?"

"What a pity Vittorio should have hurt his hand!" said Pauline. "I hope it's nothing serious. He was such a nice man."

"No," said the Colonel, incautiously. "His brother says it's nothing serious."

"But he can't know much about it," Pauline urged. "Don't you think he ought to see a doctor?"

"I rather think he will, to-morrow, unless it's all right again."

"If it's a sprain he can't be too careful with it," she insisted.

"What is Italian for sprain?" asked May. "I want to tell the man to have a doctor."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Uncle Dan, trembling for his guilty secret. "I'll tell him."

"How can you tell him, if you don't know how?" May argued. Then, turning abruptly, and glancing up into the intent, forward-looking face, just visible in the uncertain lights of the Ca.n.a.l: "Hasn't your brother seen a doctor?" she asked.

"Si, Signorina," Nanni replied, without an instant's hesitation.

"And what does he think is the trouble?"

"A slight sprain," said Nanni; "he hopes it is nothing serious!"

"That was very sensible of you," said May; "to send for a doctor at once. There, Uncle Dan, now we know the Italian for sprain. I believe in always trying to say everything!" in which startling statement the young girl admitted more than she had intended.

They were just pa.s.sing the Palazzo Darino, where a gondola lurked in the shadow.

"We shall hardly see them in the crowd," Uncle Dan remarked. "What's your idea, Nanni? Think you can keep us out of the jam?"

"Si, Signore; I know a place where they won't crowd us."

"What a funny name that is for a man," May exclaimed.

"It's short for Giovanni. I got in the way of calling him that when he was a little shaver and used to row me about with his father."

The Ca.n.a.l was twinkling with gondola lights, and as they approached the broad arch of the Rialto the crowd became greater, obliging them to pause now and then, while the dip of mult.i.tudinous oars made itself heard, a delicious undertone to the shouts and execrations of excited gondoliers. Presently, however, they had cleared the bridge, and a few strokes of the oar brought them into a quiet little haven formed by two big boats moored alongside the fish-market. As they came to a stop they could already hear the music floating round the great bend of the Ca.n.a.l.

The hulls of the two fishing-boats loomed tall and dark at either end of the gondola, while the rays of a lamp in the arcade over yonder fell athwart the yellow-brown sail of one of them, reefed loosely about the mast. There were a good many people on the quay, but they were a quiet gathering. The more aggressive members of the Venetian populace are pretty sure to get afloat on such an occasion, and a dozen different kinds of irresponsible craft were being propelled, with more or less skill, and a distracting absence of etiquette, among the decorous gondolas, whose long-suffering masters shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e in their efforts to enforce the conventional rules of the highway.

Presently one of the gondolas glided in alongside the Colonel's, and almost before their respective occupants could recognise one another the gunwales of the two boats had been securely lashed together.

"We're just in time," said Geoffry. "We could see the reflection of the lights around the bend, when we were in midstream. Ah, there it comes!"

As he spoke, a brilliant, variegated light fell upon the ma.s.s of gondolas a few rods up the Ca.n.a.l, and a moment later the huge structure of red, white, and green lamps, came drifting down-stream. It represented a great temple with dome-like roof topped by a crown of lights, glittering against the dark background of the night. As it drew nearer, the throng of boats in its path thinned a little, and broken reflections of the gleaming lights danced between the gondolas, and sparkled in the oar-drops.

"What do you think of the architecture of it?" May asked, in her fresh young voice, that seemed to dissipate illusion, like a ray of plain daylight let in upon a stage scene.

Daymond laughed.