“Gone where?”
“He was here when they brought me to the place. He compelled me to tell him where he could find Nadia Budthorne, then he left me, with a single man to guard me until morning. With the coming of daylight the man was to get away, and I might have remained there until I perished from hunger or exhaustion if you had not come to my rescue. Oh, boys, you are jewels! You are the bravest, finest chaps in the world!”
“Bunol knows!” said Buckhart hoarsely. “He accomplished his purpose!”
“But we’ll baffle him!” cried Dick. “We’ll send a warning to the Budthornes the first thing in the morning, and then—then away for Naples.”
[CHAPTER XVI.—SUNSET ON THE GRAND CANAL.]
Venice, and sunset on the Grand Canal!
Nowhere else in all the world is there such a sight. For two miles this magnificent waterway; the main thoroughfare of the most wonderful city in the world, winds in graceful curves, with red-tiled, creamy white palaces on either hand. At all times it is a source of wonder and delight to the visitor, but at sunset and in the gathering purple twilight it is the most entrancing.
So thought Dick Merriwell, as he lay amid the piled-up cushions of a gondola that was propelled by a gracefully swaying, picturesquely dressed gondolier, one beautiful evening.
Brad Buckhart and Professor Gunn were in the gondola with Dick, and they, also, were enchanted and enraptured with the scene.
The mellow rays of the sinking sun touched the shimmering surface of the water, shone on the windows of the palaces, gleamed on the hanging balconies of marble, and made the Bridge of the Rialto seem like an ivory arch against the amber-turquoise sky.